The Docent's Six Steps of Presenting a Work
The art works referred to here are held in Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, in particular this study guide focuses on Frances Reynolds and the paintings by her brother.
Docents or museum tour-guides can use a 6-point scheme to help them remember what to cover for each painting or sculpture they present to their audience. This guide goes through each one of those 6 points to help you plan your docenting …
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1 Biography of the artist: Using past tenses
Frances and Joshua Reynolds were born and grew up in Plympton near Plymouth in Devon. Frances' brother, Joshua completed his apprenticeship with Thomas Hudson in the middle of the 18th century. He also spent some time studying painting in Rome. Frances, depicted in the painting, was a writer and painter. In 1785 she published an important book on art history about beauty and truth in the new art movement gaining momentum at this key time in painting (Reynolds 1785). It is a reminder how important ekphrasis and writing on art can be in the development of new styles and schools in art. The end of the 1700s saw revolution in France and the birth of many new ideas in Britain.
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2 What is in the picture? This is ekphrasis; use the present tense.
Frances is shown in portrait format with her head and shoulders fading into a black background. Her hair is what we call red and, can you make out the colour of her eyes after over 230 years?
⬢ Teaching Point: Posing a question to the visitors that you are guiding will draw them in to look at a detail in the painting. Pose one that they can answer with no prior art history knowledge, so that they begin to build their own tourism knowledge of the artefact.
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3 Expressing wishes.
You only begin to appreciate the work of Frances' brother when you have read a little on what he was aiming to do in the world of painting at this time of intellectual upheaval in Britain and France. I would like to buy a postcard of this picture at the end of the tour to remind me of these ideas.
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4 Style and Art Movement.
What is the style or art movement of the picture, and of this group of artists then? It is called the Grand Manner. Frances writes of grace in art in her book and this Grand Manner aims to show this grace in its lines. The painting style tries to incorporate both truthful sincerity but also an elevation to noble status. The nobility is achieved by aiming for life-size portraits. Here you see that Frances is almost life size. Her brother will go on to paint full-length portraits as he gains in confidence.
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5 Conditional mood.
What would you do if you owned this painting? Where would you hang it? How much do you think it would make if it were sold at auction at Sotheby's? I would estimate it would have a price tag of £800,000.
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6 Future tenses: What will the artist go on to do?
In 1753 Joshua, and a group around him, will go on to form the Royal Academy in order to codify the new artistic currents in Britain and parts of Western Europe. This commodification will prove very worthwhile for Joshua Reynolds. By 1760 he will be rich enough to buy a house in London and back here in South Devon he will become mayor of Plympton.
⬢ Teaching Point: Look at how the future tense moves on the narrative of the spoken guided tour, leading the audience to think of the future and providing a link out to move on to the next work or to the end the tour.
References
Chicot, C. & Mansfield, C. (2014) TGUIDE: Finding Finistère [online] Available at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IKAY0QiMfJJDTCW6GOxkJMMXEwpxSFrrbpPTlWuO-F0/edit?usp=sharing
Mansfield, C. (2014) Ramble Strip - Design of an Offline Smartphone Reading Experience for Tourists and Walkers, [online] Available at http://goo.gl/kvDt6r DOI: 10.13140/2.1.2456.8327
Reynolds, F. (1785) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, etc., London Available as an eBook at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13485.epub.images?session_id=2560609d48f21d112a82d6aec87e100e7a7c87b9
Roberts, Z. (2015) River Tourism: The Pedagogy and Practice of Place Writing, Plymouth, TKT. https://amzn.to/3NMstsg
Please cite this as:
Ball, L., Chicot, C. & Mansfield, C. (2015) Museum Docenting, Plymouth, TKT. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3573.6166
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