On the surface, the titular recommendation seems absurd. How can a gift shop provide an optimal avenue for encountering the beauty and meaning of art? Once the pedagogy of its design and the nature of its offerings are considered, the advice to start a trip to a museum with the gift shop will make more […]
When the call came to contribute a “listicle” to this issue of The Classical Teacher, I did not shrink from the task (despite having never heard the word before). My first thought was: “That should be easy.” It has not been. The first difficulty in compiling a list of top ten compositions stems from the […]
I read The Classical Teacher for the same reasons you do: to gather information and to garner inspiration. When it was suggested that I devote this article to reasons for studying the fine arts, I happily agreed. In truth, the short version of the topic would fit into three sentences. 1) The arts are critical […]
The fine arts are tied into every facet of the human experience. Among these interconnected facets mathematics and science are prime, even when their links to art are not immediately apparent. Discovering and enjoying these connections can empower teachers to place the arts deeper into the core of teaching and learning. No matter the historical […]
Literature stands in intimate relationship with each of the arts, but its closest relationship is with music. The purest form of this relationship involves a composer’s timeless desire to take a poem, wrestle with it, and turn it into a song. Yet what about the novel? Can a complex narrative be transformed into music? The […]
The dinner hour approached as our riverboat sailed up the Rhine. Passengers, dressed as requested in red or white, entered the ship’s sleek dining room that was asparkle with crystal, china, and silver candelabras decked in clusters of tomatoes, purple grapes, and bunches of scallions. Alongside them perched baking potatoes, parsnips, and turnips, held up […]
One of my favorite children’s books happens to be Uri Shulevitz’s How I Learned Geography. Touchingly illustrated by the author, the story is based on Shulevitz’s actual childhood. Born in Warsaw in 1935, he fled with his family after the Nazis incinerated the city center in 1944 and razed Warsaw to the ground. The family […]
“How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” This charming line from the song “Maria” in The Sound of Music reminds us that music cannot be held in the palm of one’s hand or measured by physical parameters. Like a moonbeam, music’s substance is intangible. Music springs to life from sound waves emanating from […]
“Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.” — Was this your first sacred song? If so, you had a perfect start for the journey into sacred music. Sacred music evokes or expresses the Christian faith, either through specific words describing God’s qualities and scriptural events, or by the creation of a musical atmosphere […]
Few people recognize engagement in the arts as an intrinsic element of spiritual virtue. To use the words of Pope John Paul II from his “Letter to Artists,” penned in 1999, [T]rue art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that, even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, […]