Websites #2 The Renaissance Connection

The Renaissance Connection http://www.renaissanceconnection.org/
The Allentown Museum of Art

This is a fabulous website on the whole Renaissance. It has a good section on Leonardo but where its beauty lies is in the scope of its presentation. The site is divede into four sections: Art Explorer (art & artists), Innovations (what made the Renaissance tick), Patrons of the Arts and the Artist's Life. The best sections are the Patrons and Artist's Life sections. Very rarely do you get the connection between the artist and the patron so clearly presented. The Artist's Life section describes the long, arduous journey from lowly apprentice to master painter with humor and poignancy. While there are no "games" to play on this site, students will be enthralle dwith the beautiful illustrations and graphics on the site. The text is kid friendly and engages the reader to delve further.

I would like to have my students explore the site thoroughly , especially the part about the Artist' Life and then ask them to create a series of journal or diary entries where they were an apprentice to one of the Renaissance masters. They could include writings, sketches, prose- whatever they wanted to convey what it would be like to be an apprentice. I think this would be a great Language Arts/ Visual Arts collaborative assignment. This will be a great site to add to my Art History collection.