Visual Arts

The visual arts program is central to the elementary and middle school experience at St. Anne’s. Every student’s artwork is displayed and serves to announce and honor the importance of the arts in our school and in our lives.

All students, not just the gifted and talented, are involved in rigorous study of the visual arts as part of their general education at St. Anne’s. All students attend weekly art class in every grade, all year.

The art program at St. Anne’s follows a unique curriculum designed by our art teachers based on the Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) method of teaching and learning. This approach emphasizes higher order critical thinking skills and includes art history, aesthetics and criticism as well as art production. By exploring art through the study of master artists throughout history, our students develop more than an appreciation for art’s beauty and its importance to the human experience.

Our young artists also learn how to analyze, synthesize, explain, justify, criticize and make aesthetic judgments – skills which will serve them well in all academic settings and in life.  Primary school students create their art based on children books and the illustration techniques in the books such as the illustrator Eric Carle.  All students attend weekly art class all year and are engaged in rigorous study of the visual arts as part of their general education at St. Anne’s.