The Feudal System

Every Friday we have been meeting with some friends to work on school art projects.
Our Tapestry of Grace curriculum is full of art activities that we can make that go with our studies.  For the past four weeks we have been working on a series of dioramas that show the levels of the feudal system from the Middle Ages.

  Bonnie and her friend MacKenzie have worked together on their dioramas while Bryce and Brian have done their own.  True to form, the boys' dioramas are sparse and full of guts and gore, while the girls went all out in details.  During the week, Bonnie keeps working on hers making them as elaborate as our supplies will let her.  I asked her to take some pictures of her dioramas and want to share them with you.

 There are four levels in the feudal system.  The lowest of all the levels is the peasant.

 

Peasants would live in hovels...

 and worked the land. 

 The next level in the social ladder was the knight.  Bonnie wanted to depict her knight scene with a man being knighted by the king.

 I loved the fact that she gave her people eyebrows.  lol

 Above the knight was the king.

We are not sure why the queen is looking terrified.  Did you notice the bust of the queen in the corner?  There is another one of the king on the other side.  Bonnie also made tiles out of clay that she placed on the floor of the castle and also used to decorate the base of each pillar.

 At the top of the ladder is the church.  Now some might want to argue that the king should be on top, but it appears that the Catholic church had a huge influence on the decisions of the royalty at that time.  I mean, they convinced everyone that they could decide whether or not you could go to heaven.  They even gave you a free ticket to heaven if you fought in their holy wars, so no one wanted to tick off the papacy.

With Saran wrap and some color pictures, Bonnie created the allusion of stain glass windows.  On the ceiling of her diorama is another picture surrounded by more of her handmade tile, something reminiscent of what Michelangelo would have painted.

Great Job Girls!