Voces del Prado

Art pedagogy?

Alicia Quintana Martínez, Head of the Education Service, 1983-2007

There is a well-known woman from Venezuela, Amelia Arenas, who worked for the Metropolitan in New York and she's the best person for teaching art. She has come to Spain several times to teach courses. They asked her about art pedagogy in the Museum. She answered: "You don't need pedagogy. Pedagogy is a very thorough science that is used in education, but for art you don't need any pedagogy. What needs to be done is to place the student in front of the work of art and see whether that work conveys anything. If it doesn't, we might as well forget about it altogether. But if what draws their attention is the little number in the lower right-hand corner, then you can tell them that in days past the catalogue number was written on the canvas itself. You've got to find some way to get in.
In courses for teachers she would tell them: "When you come with the students and there is a copyist working in the hall, don't bother to tell the students about the painting by Titian that he is copying. They want to know about what is going on live, about the person who is painting right there. Tell them about copyists, the requirements that are needed to work as a copyist at the Prado Museum. You can start with silly facts such as the canvas cannot defer from the original in more or less than three centimetres, but it cannot be the exact same size because it could be used as a forgery. They can only work in the morning or in the afternoon because there are only 15 easels. They used to pay 5 pesetas per painting, something that is a mere anecdote and actually quite ridiculous--the price eventually went up. Ask the man if he is painting it for himself, to learn, because they are mostly Fine Arts students. "No, it was commissioned by an American." Then you can ask for his permission to continue watching, the students can see how he works. You can ask a random question such as, "Is that coat there the primer?" He'll explain it, and once they know all that, then is when you can make them focus on the original painting by Titian, and then you'll see that it does convey something to them." You've got to find what the painting can tell them. There are many ways to approach an exhibition that have nothing to do with stuffy pedagogy. It's a matter of getting close to those listening and to the work itself.