Adrienne, no, it is NOT at all necessary for your children to have all the artists be of the time period studied. For one thing, that wouldn’t work well. (What 6 artists would you pick for the first three modules???) and then there are periods, like Renaissance and nineteenth century, that you’d have TOO MANY to study well. Also it would get more difficult I think to keep attention and memory straight when everyone was painting in a similar style. Much easier to remember if you spread the artists around so you get a good sampling of many styles. Your children are quite capable of making the necessary connections. We always make a BOC entry for each artist and composer we study, so we can see where they DO fit as we study our history, but trying to “force” them to always fit would be impractical AND would deprive your child of the opportunity to make connections. We have never really tried to make the artists and composers “fit”, and one day when we were entering BOC entries over the early 19th century, one of my sons noticed the artists and composers we already had grouped on neighboring pages. He made the connection himself between the revolutionary movements of the late 18th and 19th centuries, romanticism in music and poetry, and developments in art like impressionism, and wondered if everyone in all walks of life began challenging rules, in politics, art, literature and music. (I was delighted, because the answer is YES!) But how much less interesting it would have been if I’d just introduced all of it and TOLD him all that.
