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Overview
Overview
The Library of Congress has a large collection of portraits of famous Americans but these images are more often used to illustrate history rather than to inform. Reading Portraits is a strategy to support students in analyzing a portrait or any piece of art to find clues to the person, place, and time period of the portrait.
The National Portrait Gallery has identified the following seven attributes for students to look for when analyzing a portrait: sitter, symbols, attributes, clothing, artist, setting, and time period. Some of these attributes may be found by merely looking at the portraits. Others may require the Bibliographic Record, Title, and Notes.
Example
Example
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the TPS Eastern Region Program used the Reading Portraits strategy at an Elementary Teacher Workshop for the Pittsburgh Diocese. Two portraits of Lincoln during the 1860 campaign were used to analyze the book, Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers.
Teachers worked in small groups of 2-3 to answer questions projected on the classroom screen. After the groups had "read" the portraits closely, they were polled to see which of the portraits they liked the best. One portrait was of the bearded Lincoln and one was the clean shaven Lincoln. This set the stage for reading the children's picture book, Lincoln's Whiskers out loud and using other Library of Congress primary sources to corroborate this delightful fictional account of a historic event. These extension activities were inspired by Book Backdrops, a Library of Congress PD Module.
German, C. S., photographer. Abraham Lincoln, last portrait sitting in Springfield, Illinois, before leaving for Washington, D.C., to assume the presidency. Feb. 9, 1861. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2009630678/ .
Read About It
Read About It
- Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: “Reading” Portraiture Guide for Educators - Includes definitions and question prompts for students to use when analyzing portraits.
- Reading Portraits: Analyzing Art as a Primary Source March 15, 2016 by Tom Bober
Write About It (in Canvas Tutorial 10)
Write About It (in Canvas Tutorial 10)
- Browse the portraits from the Library's collection, Presidents and First Ladies, or the Photo Portraits from the Van Vechten Collection. You can also search in Prints and Photographs for the photo portrait of a specific person or group you would like to use in a Reading Portraits analysis activity. For example, you can search for African Americans, Native Americans, or a person such as King Philip (Metacomet), Sachem of the Wampanoags.
- List one of the portraits or photographs that you think would work well for the Reading Portraits strategy.
- Why did you select the one you did?
- Explain how you would use this portrait in a classroom or PD workshop.
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