Art gallery guides help make the pictures come alive

Press, 26 May 1984, Page 19

Art gallery guides help make the pictures come alive

By

GARRY ARTHUR

One of the most striking and moving pictures at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery is Petrus van der Velden’s vast oil painting of a Dutch funeral procession. Few can fail to be impressed by it; and although it is not the gallery’s most valuable picture, it is certainly the best-known. The sad procession of mourners trudging through the snow, accompanying the coffin to the graveyard, raises many questions. Who has died? How did van der Velden come to be there to capture the mournful scene? How did the McDougall get hold of it? The gallery has the answers to these questions, and while it cannot provide an on-the-spot question-and answer service to each of the thousands who visit the McDougall every year, it does have a team of unpaid trained guides who pass on information about the collection to groups of adults and schoolchildren.’ In the case of the “Dutch Funeral,” the guides would be able to say that Van der Velden painted it in Holland in 1871 and exhibited it first in the Hague. It won him a silver medal, and the painter, then in his middle age, felt that the success of his artistic career was assured. But although such a master as Vincent van Gogh admired his work (he wrote to his brother Theo that he wanted to meet Van der Velden because he could learn much from him) he did not receive

the official recognition he expected. That is why he left the Netherlands and sailed for New Zealand, where his friend, Gerrit Van Asch, was establishing the school for the Deaf at Summer. He brought the “Dutch Funeral” with him, and the Van Asch family gave it to the city in 1932. Ann Betts, the McDougall’s education officer, says the painting does not depict any particular funeral. Van der Velden did it as a sort of composite of what he had seen in the district of Marken, where he was sent on an official grant to study the fisherfolk. The guides to whom the gallery’s experts pass on this sort of information are all people who have some experience with art, or who have been constant visitors to the gallery, or have had experience of working with the public. There are 25 or 30 on the roster at any one time, and the gallery is now looking for another intake of 15 volunteers. They get a short but intensive basic training, learning about thq different painting media, the use of line and construction in a painting, and the roles of space, volume, tone, colour, and texture. They are taught about the history of New Zealand painting, and before being let loose on the public they are armed with a great deal of written factual information

about major works in the collection. They are also given an introductory lesson in the principles and techniques of modern art. The McDougall has constantly changing special exhibitions, and the volunteer guides are given special “keep up” training sessions on each of these. Next month for example, they will learn about the exhibition of tribal art of PapuaNew Guinea which opens on June 13, and an exhibition of Van der Velden’s New Zealand paintings which opens on June 17. Each volunteer is rostered on for two days a month, and is called in according to the gallery’s bookings. Most groups are parties of primary and secondary school pupils. Unlike the Canterbury Museum, where teachers and trainee teachers are employed by the Department of Education, the art gallery must provide its own guides. There is no charge to the school parties, and last year 7911 pupils were guided through the collection. Groups of adults made up the rest of the 8944 who used the service. During the Rudolf Gopas, Rita Angus, and Paul Klee exhibitions, free public tours were offered seven days a week. Ann Betts says the gallery’s' reason for providing a free guiding service is that it feels a responsibility as the city’s public art gallery to involve the community in its programmes.