EDUCATION IS THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONS; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books; for we know that our business is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of –
‘Those first-born affinities
That fit our new existence to existing things.’
Charlotte Mason, vol. 1
The sunflowers seized her imagination the year she was 12.
But her relationship with Vincent Van Gogh had begun years before, when she was very, very young and swirls of sky heralded the birth of our Saviour . She and her brothers released those swirls across our golden wall, just as they remembered them from their picture study.
“The art training of children should proceed on two lines. The six-year-old child should begin both to express himself and to appreciate, and his appreciation should be well in advance of his power to express what he sees or imagines.” – C. Mason, vol. 1
They would meet other artists: Giotto, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, Cassatt, and so many more through our picture talks.
“When children have begun regular lessons {that is, as soon as they are six}, this sort of study of pictures should not be left to chance, but they should take one artist after another, term by term, and study quietly some half-dozen reproductions of his work in the course of the term.” – C. Mason, vol. 1
But Vincent remained her most intimate artist friend. His story made us all weep, but especially her.
Years later she discovered the true hero of Vincent’s story when through her reading, she met his younger brother, Theo. Inspired, and with three brothers of her own, she took up her pen, for “behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133
“An idea is more than an image or a picture; it is, so to speak, a spiritual germ endowed with vital force – with power, that is, to grow and to produce after its kind.” – C. Mason, vol. 1