Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image
Museum education literature has paid surprisingly little attention to the distinctiveness of portrait galleries or portraits as a genre, despite the fact that they provide ‘powerful spaces for pedagogy’ (Hooper-Greenhill 2020: 24). Taking an ethnographic approach, this article offers a detailed anal...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Leicester
2023-05-01
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| Series: | Museum & Society |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/4077 |
| _version_ | 1797826094735294464 |
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| author | Shari Sabeti |
| author_facet | Shari Sabeti |
| author_sort | Shari Sabeti |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Museum education literature has paid surprisingly little attention to the distinctiveness of portrait galleries or portraits as a genre, despite the fact that they provide ‘powerful spaces for pedagogy’ (Hooper-Greenhill 2020: 24). Taking an ethnographic approach, this article offers a detailed analysis of such pedagogies at work in one creative writing class based at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It describes two pedagogical regimes – the institution’s and the guide’s – and explores how they compete to frame the portraits in different ways. Focusing on two specific portraits, and the creative writing produced in response to them, it argues that while the portrait gallery’s implied pedagogy insists on the subject in the portrait, the class tutor focuses on the portrait as object. Employing Hans Belting’s theory of images (2011), the article concludes that there is a distinctive pedagogical dynamism inherent in the portrait genre, which can be mined for different educational purposes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T11:03:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9f5125c7e07d472e924b7349cb329cd7 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1479-8360 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T11:03:37Z |
| publishDate | 2023-05-01 |
| publisher | University of Leicester |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Museum & Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-9f5125c7e07d472e924b7349cb329cd72023-05-16T15:19:45ZengUniversity of LeicesterMuseum & Society1479-83602023-05-01211456110.29311/mas.v21i1.40773488Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait ImageShari Sabeti0University of EdinburghMuseum education literature has paid surprisingly little attention to the distinctiveness of portrait galleries or portraits as a genre, despite the fact that they provide ‘powerful spaces for pedagogy’ (Hooper-Greenhill 2020: 24). Taking an ethnographic approach, this article offers a detailed analysis of such pedagogies at work in one creative writing class based at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It describes two pedagogical regimes – the institution’s and the guide’s – and explores how they compete to frame the portraits in different ways. Focusing on two specific portraits, and the creative writing produced in response to them, it argues that while the portrait gallery’s implied pedagogy insists on the subject in the portrait, the class tutor focuses on the portrait as object. Employing Hans Belting’s theory of images (2011), the article concludes that there is a distinctive pedagogical dynamism inherent in the portrait genre, which can be mined for different educational purposes.https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/4077portrait gallery, pedagogy, belting, ethnography, creative writing |
| spellingShingle | Shari Sabeti Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image Museum & Society portrait gallery, pedagogy, belting, ethnography, creative writing |
| title | Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image |
| title_full | Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image |
| title_fullStr | Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image |
| title_full_unstemmed | Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image |
| title_short | Coming ‘Face to Face with the People who Shaped Scotland’: Portrait Galleries, Creative Writing and the Pedagogical Dynamism of the Portrait Image |
| title_sort | coming face to face with the people who shaped scotland portrait galleries creative writing and the pedagogical dynamism of the portrait image |
| topic | portrait gallery, pedagogy, belting, ethnography, creative writing |
| url | https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/4077 |
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