The Master And His Apprentices Review

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Looking for art history homeschool curriculum for your high schooler? Let me tell you about our review of The Master and His Apprentices: Art History from a Christian Perspective created by The Master and His Apprentices.

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[ctt template=”4″ link=”1Av_c” via=”yes” ]If you are looking for an Art History Program to teach in your homeschool, check out The Master and His Apprentices Review used in our home high school.[/ctt]

About The Master and His Apprentices

This is a Art History High School Curriculum that qualifies (in my state at least) as a full credit course for high school. Both digital and hardbound copies of the textbook and teacher guide are available. The textbook has over 600 images. It was written by a homeschool graduate who has taught art, English, history and the Bible to students around the world. Over a decade of research has been put into this book. Gina Ferguson's work ties history and the Bible together in a user-friendly way to help people understand art, history, the world around you and your connection to the Master. Since this is from a Christian Perspective, there is no nudity or other objectionable material. It begins with God and His Creation and then discusses other artists and time periods. This doubles as a reference for other subjects including a travel guide, archaeology resource, a history timeline, and has a Time Period chart that is very useful.

How We Used It

My 10th grade daughter, Mercedes, is the one that helped me review this product. We were given a digital edition of both the 370 page eBook and the teacher guide to review as well as printing rights for the consumable worksheets (from the teacher guide) for my entire immediate family. We downloaded it onto an iPad to read it on. My daughter was able to print out worksheets to do for homework to help her review what she had learned. The lesson would have you read some pages and then answer questions. Here is an example of what an assignment looked like.

Here is the next page.

The teacher guide didn't really stand out as being different from what I expected in a Teacher guide. It outlines the course requirements and suggests different time-frame options for its completion. It helps you to plan lessons and assignments.

This is a full curriculum and Mercedes will continue to use the textbook and teacher guide to completion and will earn a full credit in high school Art History with this program. We normally take a break off from homeschool in the summer, so I was planning to start this up again in the fall, but I have already caught her reading it on her own now that our “review time” is done, so I can tell she likes it. She is very interested in art and is an artist and may use art in her future. I think it is imperative that she has this education and I am so thankful for how in-depth this textbook is.

Textbook

Whoa! I can see why it took over a decade to compile this textbook! This is the best Art History book I have ever seen! This was very much needed in circulation, it is especially needed in Christian homes. I am an artist and an art lover so I was thinking that I would find a lot to critique here and was worried it would not cover everything.

It has exceeded my expectations and then-some!

What impresses me the most…

That it starts with God and His Creation first, that's the way I personally feel Art History should be and no one else that I have read has written it that way.

That it covers so many time periods like Ancient Cultures (including Aegan), Classical Antiquity (including Etruscan), Middle Ages (including Islamic), Renaissance (including High Italian Renaissance), The Baroque Era, and Rococo to Today.

There are very vivid pictures, Global Highlights, essays that include skepticism and Creation, a Time Period chart, a complete timeline, as well as a glossary of terms to describe art. Like I said, much more than I had expected here!

Each Section Has a Timeline

At the beginning of each section, there is a timeline that is broken into three sections: Important World Events (& Art), Famous Ancient Roman Art, and Biblical Events & Christian History. So, for example, in the Ancient Roman Art section for the year 220 AD, you would find Antonine Plague Begins in Roman Europe, Baths at Caracalla, and Continued Persecution of Christians/Martyrdom of Perpetua respectively.

Pieces by Location

Be careful not to miss this! It is way at the back of the book in the appendix section. It is like a travel guide because it tells you where art works are located by region! I was impressed to see that my home state of Wisconsin has a red-figure lekythos (further described on page 99 of the textbook) in the Chazen Museum in Wisconsin. Since we did not get that far in the review period, I skipped ahead to page 99 to see what that was all about.

As you can see, the photos are very colorful and the descriptions are well-written. Here is a close-up of the description. The vase-like piece of art on the left is in my home state of Wisconsin.

Terms to Describe Art

This is a section in the back of the textbook that I as an adult find very useful. It tells what words people may use to talk about art, what the word means and some examples, like this, “thick impasto strokes were popular during the Baroque period”. How this helps me is when I am describing an art piece I have found for resale and am selling it on eBay! It's great to have more descriptive words to accurately describe what I am seeing.

Mercedes' Opinion

“It was good. Lots of info on some of the cultures that explains why the art was the way it was.”

My Opinion

Just a reminder that I am an artist and love art. I think this is the best Art History book ever! I feel this should be in every Christian homeschool and every Christian private school. It is so thorough and covers more than the typical high school Art History book does. The timelines are so educational and help me to see where the art fits into history. I am so happy to have this in my homeschool for my high school children to use. Any time we travel now, I will be consulting the “Pieces by Location” section to see if there is anything that we can go and check out as a family for a homeschool field trip. And we can read all about that piece of art in this wonderful book, The Master and His Apprentices: Art History from a Christian Perspective.