Stories Pictures Tell.

by Flora Carpenter.

Book One.

THE PREFACE

Art supervisors in the public schools a.s.sign picture-study work in each grade, recommending the study of certain pictures by well-known masters. As Supervisor of Drawing I found that the children enjoyed this work but that the teachers felt incompetent to conduct the lessons as they lacked time to look up the subject and to gather adequate material. Recourse to a great many books was necessary and often while much information could usually be found about the artist, very little was available about his pictures.

Hence I began collecting information about the pictures and preparing the lessons for the teachers just as I would give them myself to pupils of their grade.

My plan does not include many pictures during the year, as this is to be only a part of the art work and is not intended to take the place of drawing.

The lessons in this grade are planned for the usual drawing period of from twenty to thirty minutes, and have been given in that time successfully.

FLORA L. CARPENTER

[Ill.u.s.tration: FEEDING HER BIRDS]

STORIES PICTURES TELL

FEEDING HER BIRDS

=Original Picture:= Lille Museum, Lille, France.

=Artist:= Jean Franois Millet (zhN frNsw mele).

=Birthplace:= Gruchy, France.

=Dates:= Born, 1814; died, 1875.

=Questions to arouse interest.= What do you see in this picture? What are the children doing? Where do they live? On what are they sitting?

Whom can you see behind the house? What is he doing? What do you think the children were doing before their mother called them? why? What does the hen expect? What else do you see in the picture? What time of day do you think it is? Why is this picture called "Feeding Her Birds"? How many like it? why?

=The story of the picture.= In a tiny white cottage in a little village in France, lived a painter with his wife and nine children.

This painter's name was Jean Franois Millet, and although quite poor his was a very happy family. Nearly every morning the father worked hard in his garden behind the house, and every afternoon in a queer little old room he called his studio. Here he painted beautiful pictures of places and people he saw and loved. Almost all of his pictures are of the country and of people who worked, because he knew most about them and because he loved them best.

Sometimes he finished his work in the garden very early, and then he was glad, for he liked better to paint than to do anything else in the world.

One day when he looked out through the window of his studio he saw a much prettier picture than the one he was painting. He saw three of his children sitting in a row on the doorstep, while the mother fed broth to each of them in turn from a wooden spoon. As they crowded close together they reminded him of some little birds he had been watching that morning. You know how little birds open their bills and crowd toward the edge of the nest when the mother bird feeds them? Millet thought he would paint this picture, and name it "Feeding Her Birds."

See how the mother tips forward on the stool as she bends toward the three children. That is a wooden spoon she holds in her hand, and it is full of hot broth from the bowl in her lap. The children seem to be very hungry. No doubt they have been playing hard all the morning.

It is easy to see with what the little girl at the left-hand side of the picture has been playing. She holds her wooden doll very close, and loves it just as much as if it were china and had real hair as your own doll has. She is the eldest of the children, and you can see she is unselfish because she sits patiently by while her baby brother and little sister get the first taste of the delicious broth.

The boy and the younger girl must have been playing with the basket and cart you see in the picture, for the basket is overturned as if it had been dropped in a hurry when the mother came to the door with the broth. Now the playthings are quite forgotten.

The boy opens his mouth wide as he leans forward for the first taste, while the little sister puts her arm around him to hold him steady. As she watches him, she opens her mouth, too.

See the hen running toward them! She thinks there will surely be something for her to eat, too.

The three children wear long ap.r.o.ns all alike, and the queer wooden shoes that the peasants always wore in those days. What a clatter those wooden shoes must have made even when the children played in the yard! And what a noise they made on the wooden floors in the house unless the children walked very carefully!

The girls wear bonnets tied with string, while the boy has a cap that looks very much like a tam-o'-shanter, except that it, too, is tied under his chin. The mother wears a handkerchief on her head and another round her neck. Her dress looks thick and warm, and so do the children's dresses. It must be a cool day, for even the doll is wrapped in a shawl.

The man behind the house is working busily in the garden. Millet must have thought of himself when he painted this man, for, like the father bird, he must work hard to get enough food for his family. Sometimes there was very little, and the bread had to be divided into such tiny pieces that the children were still hungry when they had eaten their share.

We know it must be about noon because the shadows in the picture are so short. What a nice big yard these children had to play in, and what good times they must have had playing all kinds of games! They had lived in the city of Paris several years and for that reason, no doubt, they liked to play "keeping store" best of all. They gathered acorns, stones, and flowers, and placed them on a big wooden box for a counter. Then they took turns being storekeeper.

Perhaps to-day it had been the boy's turn, and he had stood behind the counter ready to sell his goods. The younger girl had come first, carrying a basket. Probably they called the stones oranges or apples, and, judging by the overturned basket, the little girl must have bought at least a dozen. Next had come the little mother, with her doll baby riding in the cart. This cart is hardly large enough for the doll and so it had to be guided very carefully to keep dolly from falling out.

When the mother called, the elder of the two girls had caught up her doll quickly, leaving the cart behind; the younger sister had tossed her basket of oranges away in glee, while the boy forgot all about his store at the thought of the hot broth they were to have.

The high doorway of this little one-story, whitewashed house of plaster and stones is just wide enough for the three children to sit one beside the other. That great vine growing up beside the door is probably an ivy vine, for we are told that the little white cottage is still standing and is completely covered with ivy.

Everything you see in the picture is home-made,--the clothes, the doll, the spoon, the cart, the basket, and even the milking stool upon which the mother is seated.

Sitting there in the bright sunlight, these round-faced, happy little children will soon finish their broth; then they will be ready to begin the "store-keeping" game again.

=Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= In what country did these children live? In what kind of house did they live? What grew up beside the door? What did their father do for a living? What was his name? Where did he paint his pictures? What kind of pictures did he like best to paint? why? How did he happen to paint this picture? Why did he call the picture "Feeding Her Birds"? Upon what is the mother sitting? What kind of a spoon has she in her hand? What is in it, and in the bowl in her lap? What makes you think the children are hungry? Which one is fed first? Which one will probably wait until the last? why? How are the children dressed? What kind of shoes have they? How many of you have ever seen wooden shoes? How is the mother dressed? What makes you think it must be a cool day? What do the shadows tell us of the time of day? What game did these children like to play? What did they have to play with? Who made their toys and clothes? What did they do when their mother called them? What makes you think they were happy children?

=To the Teacher:= After the story is told, the children should be allowed to act out the picture. Stools or kindergarten chairs placed in the schoolroom doorway, and a spoon, a doll, a cart, and a basket, which the children will gladly bring from home, are all the accessories needed. It is well to let the pupils act out the game which the children are supposed to have been playing when the mother called them, as well as the story in the picture itself.

=The story of the artist.= Shall we tell you something about the man, Millet, who painted this picture?

Jean Franois Millet was the son of poor French peasants. His father was a good man, very fond of music and of all beautiful things out of doors.

Sometimes he would say to his son, "Look at that tree, how large and beautiful it is; as beautiful as a flower!" He would call his son's attention to the fields, the sunsets, and all things around him.

Millet's mother worked in the fields with his father all day long. So it was his grandmother who rocked him to sleep and cared for him while he was very little. She was the one who named him Jean after his father, and Franois after the good St. Francis. She was a religious woman, and almost the only pictures Millet saw when he was a boy were those in his grandmother's Bible. He copied them many times, drawing them with white chalk on the stone wall. This pleased the grandmother very much, and she encouraged him all she could.

When he was eighteen years old Millet drew his first great picture. This is how it happened. As he was coming home from church he met an old man with bent back leaning on a cane as he walked slowly along. Something about the bent figure made Millet want to draw a picture of him. So, taking some charcoal from his pocket, he drew the picture on a stone wall. The people pa.s.sing by knew at once who it was; they were pleased and told Millet so. His father, too, was delighted, for he himself had once wished to be an artist. He decided that his son should become what he had wished to be; so he sent him to a good teacher.

Millet worked very hard, but for a long time his pictures did not sell, and he was very poor. After a while people saw what wonderful pictures he could paint, and they were glad to let him know how much they thought of him and of his beautiful paintings.

=Questions about the artist.= Who painted this picture? What kind of a man was his father? What did he tell his son about the trees? What did Millet's mother do? Who took care of Millet while his parents worked in the fields? What kind of pictures did Millet have to look at? What did he draw first? Where did he draw? Who helped him? Tell about the old man leaning on a cane. On what did Millet draw his picture? Who saw it? What did they say? What did his father say? What did he wish his son to be? What did Millet do then? What do people think of his pictures now? How many of you like this picture?

CHILDREN OF CHARLES I