In what country did these children live? In what kind of house did they live?
What grew up beside the door?
What did their father do for a living?
Upon what is the mother sitting? What kind of a spoon has she in her hand? What is in it, and in the bowl in her lap?
What makes you think the children are hungry? Which one is fed first? Which one will probably wait until the last? why?
How are the children dressed? What kind of shoes have they? Have you ever seen wooden shoes?
How is the mother dressed?
What makes you think it must be a cool day? What do the shadows tell us of the time of day?
What game did these children like to play? What did they have to play with?
Who made their toys and clothes?
What did they do when their mother called them?
What makes you think they were happy children? 作者: 小水牛 时间: 2013-10-23 13:03
谢谢推荐
从没有关注过艺术熏陶，今天晚上让孩子看看，艺术情操的培养从小抓起作者: 瑜珈 时间: 2013-10-23 14:21
进一步的解说。因为资料是英文的，先贴上来，有时间的话做下简单的翻译，或者有兴趣的家长按楼层领任务翻译。 The story of the picture
In a tiny white cottage in a little village in France, lived a painter with his wife and nine children. This painter's name was Jean François Millet, and although quite poor his was a very happy family. Nearly every morning the father worked hard in his garden behind the house, and every afternoon in a queer little old room he called his studio. Here he painted beautiful pictures of places and people he saw and loved. Almost all of his pictures are of the country and of people who worked, because he knew most about them and because he loved them best.
Sometimes he finished his work in the garden very early, and then he was glad, for he liked better to paint than to do anything else in the world.
One day when he looked out through the window of his studio he saw a much prettier picture than the one he was painting. He saw three of his children sitting in a row on the doorstep, while the mother fed broth to each of them in turn from a wooden spoon. As they crowded close together they reminded him of some little birds he had been watching that morning. You know how little birds open their bills and crowd toward the edge of the nest when the mother bird feeds them? Millet thought he would paint this picture, and name it "Feeding Her Birds."
See how the mother tips forward on the stool as she bends toward the three children. That is a wooden spoon she holds in her hand, and it is full of hot broth from the bowl in her lap. The children seem to be very hungry. No doubt they have been playing hard all the morning. 作者: 瑜珈 时间: 2013-10-23 14:24
It is easy to see with what the little girl at the left-hand side of the picture has been playing. She holds her wooden doll very close, and loves it just as much as if it were china and had real hair as your own doll has. She is the eldest of the children, and you can see she is unselfish because she sits patiently by while her baby brother and little sister get the first taste of the delicious broth.
The boy and the younger girl must have been playing with the basket and cart you see in the picture, for the basket is overturned as if it had been dropped in a hurry when the mother came to the door with the broth. Now the playthings are quite forgotten.
The boy opens his mouth wide as he leans forward for the first taste, while the little sister puts her arm around him to hold him steady. As she watches him, she opens her mouth, too.
See the hen running toward them! She thinks there will surely be something for her to eat, too.
The three children wear long aprons all alike, and the queer wooden shoes that the peasants always wore in those days. What a clatter those wooden shoes must have made even when the children played in the yard! And what a noise they made on the wooden floors in the house unless the children walked very carefully! 作者: 瑜珈 时间: 2013-10-23 14:25
The girls wear bonnets tied with string, while the boy has a cap that looks very much like a tam-o'-shanter, except that it, too, is tied under his chin. The mother wears a handkerchief on her head and another round her neck. Her dress looks thick and warm, and so do the children's dresses. It must be a cool day, for even the doll is wrapped in a shawl.
The man behind the house is working busily in the garden. Millet must have thought of himself when he painted this man, for, like the father bird, he must work hard to get enough food for his family. Sometimes there was very little, and the bread had to be divided into such tiny pieces that the children were still hungry when they had eaten their share.
We know it must be about noon because the shadows in the picture are so short. What a nice big yard these children had to play in, and what good times they must have had playing all kinds of games! They had lived in the city of Paris several years and for that reason, no doubt, they liked to play "keeping store" best of all. They gathered acorns, stones, and flowers, and placed them on a big wooden box for a counter. Then they took turns being storekeeper.
Perhaps to-day it had been the boy's turn, and he had stood behind the counter ready to sell his goods. The younger girl had come first, carrying a basket. Probably they called the stones oranges or apples, and, judging by the overturned basket, the little girl must have bought at least a dozen. Next had come the little mother, with her doll baby riding in the cart. This cart is hardly large enough for the doll and so it had to be guided very carefully to keep dolly from falling out. 作者: 瑜珈 时间: 2013-10-23 14:25
When the mother called, the elder of the two girls had caught up her doll quickly, leaving the cart behind; the younger sister had tossed her basket of oranges away in glee, while the boy forgot all about his store at the thought of the hot broth they were to have.
The high doorway of this little one-story, whitewashed house of plaster and stones is just wide enough for the three children to sit one beside the other. That great vine growing up beside the door is probably an ivy vine, for we are told that the little white cottage is still standing and is completely covered with ivy.
Everything you see in the picture is home-made,—the clothes, the doll, the spoon, the cart, the basket, and even the milking stool upon which the mother is seated.
Sitting there in the bright sunlight, these round-faced, happy little children will soon finish their broth; then they will be ready to begin the "store-keeping" game again. 作者: 爱睿02 时间: 2013-10-23 14:40
