Art & Music Education

In her book The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer argues that everyone has a talent or skill ready to be discovered and put to use for the glory of God. Often, that talent lies dormant, and the individual is frustrated by the empty spot in their life it should fill. Finding your talent should be a priority, though it's no drudgery—discovering what God has made you good at is a joyful and exciting process.

Similarly, Olympic gold medalist Eric Liddell never put his running before his duty to Christ; instead, he used his talent as a sprinter to glorify God. As he expresses in the brilliant film Chariots of Fire, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." God gives us talents to use in His name, and our joy in them is really our joy in Him.

Eric Liddell's talent led him to compete internationally; the "hidden art" Schaeffer describes is a little more modest, though no less glorifying to God when pursued humbly and gratefully. For Schaeffer, one's hidden art can be something as simple as arranging flowers on the kitchen table, or as elaborate as writing a story or painting a landscape. Everyone has different strengths, and each should learn to cultivate their own.

Our goal in teaching our children art and music isn't to raise a bunch of Van Goghs and Mozarts. If your child is a creative genius that's wonderful, but even if she can barely stay in the lines when coloring, her gifts are just as valuable to the Lord, and her discovery of them is just as important for her growth and personal happiness.

There are a few books in this section designed to help kids appreciate great art of the past, to learn about composers, or to identify the work of different painters and architects. However, most of what we offer is intended to help students across the whole range of ages to acquire and develop whatever skills they may have in sketching, painting, composing, instrument-playing, sculpting, acting, etc.

It's important to remember that no one will ever do anything perfectly, and first attempts are generally met with complete or near-total failure. Failure is often seen as an enemy, or simply as a hurdle to be overcome. Real failure, however, is integral to eventual success and (more importantly) to learning and character development. If a child managed to get everything right the first time, there would be no room for improvement, no reason to work hard.

Exercising one's creativity is essential. Humans were created in God's image, which means in part that we are creative beings, and whenever we're creative in ways that honor God, we're imitating Him. To the extent we can train our kids to do this, we should. Encourage them to do the best they can, because in the end they're doing it for God, and He expects nothing less.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
Did you find this review helpful?
73 Items found Print
Active Filters: Adult, Hardcover, Used Books & Materials
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
by Matthew Frederick
from MIT Press
for 9th-Adult
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
60 Minutes to Better Painting
by Craig Nelson
from North Light Books
for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
All Shook Up
Pivotal Moments in American History
by Glenn C. Altschuler
from Oxford University
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
American Barns and Covered Bridges
by Eric Sloane
1st edition from Wilfred Funk, Inc.
for 5th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings
by Paul Williamson
from Her Majesty's Stationery Office
for 6th-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Art and Artists of Russia
by Richard Hare
from Methuen
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Art of Art for Children's Books
by Diana Klemin
1st edition from Clarkson Potter Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Art Workshops for Children
by Herve Tullet
from Phaidon Press
for Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$12.50 (1 in stock)
Baby Blessing
by Welleran Poltarnees
from Laughing Elephant
for Kindergarten-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Beatles vs The Rolling Stones
by Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot
from Voyageur Press
for 9th-Adult
in Music History (Location: ELE-MUSHIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Best Known Gilbert & Sullivan Operas and Bab Ballads
by William Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan
from Halcyon House
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Botanical Painting in Watercolor
by Billy Showell
from Search Press
for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Built to Last
by George Sullivan
from Scholastic Inc.
for 8th-Adult
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Calligraphy
First Steps Series
by Don Marsh
from North Light Books
for 6th-Adult
in Calligraphy (Location: HAN-CALLIG)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Carl Larsson's A Home
by Carl Larsson and Lennart Rudstrom
from G.P. Putnam's Sons
for 3rd-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Chapels and Meeting Houses
by Kenneth Lindley
from John Baker
for 8th-Adult
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Charlton Heston Presents: The Bible
by Charlton Heston, Tom Robotham
from GT Publishing
for Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Choices, Changes
by Joni Eareckson Tada
from Zondervan
Biography for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Classical Music
by Phil G. Goulding
1st edition from Fawcett Books
for 8th-Adult
in Music History (Location: ELE-MUSHIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Create Your Own Artist's Journal
from North Light Books
for 6th-Adult
in Art & Drawing Reference (Location: ELE-ARTREF)
$12.50 (1 in stock)
Cry from the Earth
by John Bierhorst
from Four Winds Press
for 6th-Adult
in Native American History (Location: HISA-19NAT)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Dancer: Degas, Forain, and Toulouse-Lautrec
by Annette Dixon with Mary Weaver Chapin, Jill Devonyar, Richard Kendall, and Florence Valdes-Forain
from Portland Art Museum
for Adult
in Artists & Illustrators (Location: ELE-ARTISTS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Drawing with Pen and Ink
by Arthur L. Guptill, edited and revised by Henry C. Pitz
1968 Printing, Revised Edition from Reinhold Book Corp.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Eye of the Artist
by Jack Clifton
from Watson-Guptill Publications
for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Famous Pictures of Real Animals
by Lorinda Munson Bryant
from John Lane Co.
for Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Frederic Chopin
by Victor Seroff
from Macmillan
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Gondoliers, or, The King of Barataria
by Gilbert & Sullivan, adapted by Robert Lawrence, illustrated by Sheilah Beckett
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 5th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Great Composers - Great Artists: Portraits
by Stewart Buettner and Reinhard Pauly
from Amadeus Press
for 6th-Adult
in Biography Anthologies (Location: BIO-ANTH)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
History Sings
by Hazel Gertrude Kinscella
from University Publishing Company
American Music History for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Illuminated Page
by Janet Backhouse
from University of Toronto Press
for 7th-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Illustrated Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes
by William Wordsworth, Edited by Peter Bicknell
from Congdon & Weed Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Great Britain / England (Location: HISMC-BRIT)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
In Search of Norman Rockwell's America
by Photography by Kevin Rivoli, Artwork by Norman Rockwell
from Howard Books
for 3rd-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Kate Greenaway
by Rodney K. Engen
from Harmony
for 6th-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Leonardo da Vinci
by Richard McLanathan
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
for 8th-Adult
in Artists & Illustrators (Location: ELE-ARTISTS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Life of Picasso Volume II
Book 2 of 4
by John Richardson with Marilyn McCully
First Edition 2nd Printing from Random House
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Lifetime of Wisdom
by Joni Eareckson Tada
from Zondervan
Autobiographies & Memoirs for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Magic Flute - Book with 2 CDs
Black Dog Opera Library
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, text by David Foil
from Black Dog & Leventhal
for 8th-Adult
in Music Appreciation (Location: ELE-MUSAP)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Masters of Music: Debussy
by Percy M. Young, Illustrated by Richard Shirley Smith
from David White
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Mathew Brady
by James D. Horan
from Bonanza Books
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer & Cinerama Present How the West Was Won
from Random House
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Miracle of the Bells
by Russell Janney
from Prentice Hall
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Mission Memories
by John Steven McGroarty, illustrated by Frederick V. Carpenter
from Neuner Corporation
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Moon and Sixpence
Modern Library
by W. Somerset Maugham
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
Mozart: A Bicentennial Tribute
by Wendy Thompson
from Chartwell Books
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Music to Remember
by Lillian Baldwin
from Silver Burdett Press
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Nanook of the North
by Robert Flaherty, edited from the film by Robert Kraus
First Printing from Windmill Books
for Kindergarten-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Natural Way to Draw
by Kimon Nicolaides
from Houghton Mifflin
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Oil Painting with the Masters
by Cindy Salaski
from North Light Books
Oil Painting Instruction for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Picasso
Artists by Themselves
by Rachel Barnes, editor
from Bracken Books
for Adult
in Artists & Illustrators (Location: ELE-ARTISTS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Practical Problems of the Portrait Painter
by Janet Robertson
from Darton, Longman & Todd
for Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music
by Robert W. Gutman
from Time-Life Books
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Robert Bateman: An Artist in Nature
by Robert Bateman, text by Rick Archbold
from Random House
for 9th-Adult
in Artists & Illustrators (Location: ELE-ARTISTS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Romantic Oil Painting Made Easy
by Robert Hagan
Oil Painting Instruction for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Step By Step Art School: Drawing
by Jenny Rodwell
from Exeter Books
for Adult
in Advanced Drawing Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTDRAD)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Story of Art
by E. H. Gombrich
from Phaidon Press
for 10th-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$19.00 (1 in stock)
Sun the Moon and the Stars
by Richard Whelan, designed by Arnold Skolnik
from First Glance Books
for 10th-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan
by William Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan
from Simon and Schuster
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Verdi
by Joseph Wechsberg
1st edition from Putnam Juvenile
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Victorian Cottages
by Andrew Clayton-Payne
from Weidenfeld & Nicolson
for Adult
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Visual Dictionary of Buildings
DK Visual Dictionaries
from DK Publishing
for 8th-Adult
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Wagner and His Music-Dramas
by Robert Bagar
from Grosset & Dunlap
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Warner Bros. Presents My Fair Lady
from Warner Brothers
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Watercolor Wisdom
by Jo Taylor
from North Light Books
for Adult
in Painting Instruction (Location: ELE-ARTPAI)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Wit and Whimsy of Mary Engelbreit
by Mary Engelbreit
from Andrews McMeel
for 3rd-Adult
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
World of Bernini
1973 printing from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Bruegel
Revised, 1975 printing from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Cezanne
Revised, 1974 printing from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Delacroix
by Tom Prideaux
Revised, 1975 printing from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Gainsborough
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Manet
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Titian
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Vermeer
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
World of Whistler
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Time-Life Library of Art (Location: VIN-ARTBIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)