The study of the Arts includes
visual art (painting, sculpture, photography, film), aural arts (music),
kinetic arts (dance, drama) and written arts (poetry, literature). Academic study
in the Arts includes history and appreciation of the Art. Studio study in the
Arts includes the specific elements of the Arts and the basic and advanced
skills discovered and mastered through participation in the Arts.
Studying the Arts enhances the
learning process of classical Christian education’s Trivium. The Trivium’s grammar, logic (dialectic), and rhetoric stages of learning form the basis of
classical education. The Trivium is revealed in the study and
production of visual art. Grammar is learning brush strokes and how to
work in the mediums of oils or watercolors. Logic is using those basic skills to
construct exercises in shape and perspective. Rhetoric is the ability to create a
two-dimensional scene through color that can convey action and/or emotion. The grammar stage
of learning to play a musical instrument is learning to read music and
discovering basic finger skills. The logic stage is learning to play pieces of
music as they are written on the page. The rhetoric exercise of playing the instrument is
reached when the student can master what is written on the page and personally
express the composer’s message through performance. Composing music shares the grammar phase
of reading music, the logic stage of studying the forms and
techniques of other composers, and the rhetoric stage of composition. In many ways,
the Arts put flesh on the skeleton of classical Christian education and help
our students to more fully enjoy the blessings of…
