We are very excited to launch the blog “Reading” The National Gallery with its first performance, the audio guide “The Masterpieces”. Please continue to the page “Audio The Masterpieces” to download the guide.
We hope you will enjoy your visit to the National Gallery.
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I used this audio guide for a visit to the National Gallery a few Sundays ago. I thought it offered a refreshing alternative to the traditional audio guides on offer. What a great experience to see the museum in a new way. I particularly enjoyed the way the audio described the context surrounding the gallery. The musical interlude that accompanied the Turner paintings was fitting and quite a surprise. I hope that more people use this audio guide and that more might be available in the future. Thanks
Thank you Virgil for a great guided passage through the National Gallery. It’s so nice to afford the luxury of “visiting” only three paintings and sets up a nice relationship between the art work and the viewer/reader.
That the visit starts from without the Gallery is such great detail. As I finally entered, there already seemed to be a parallel space, within the museum, cut out for the guide and myself. Something that could not be achieved if collecting an official guide from the reception desk. It felt as though I was bringing an outsider to the space, something illicit.
From then on the crowd didn’t seem to matter because of the intimate space created between the guide, the paintings and myself. I caught myself looking at other visitors (from that bubble) to try and see how they went through the space, to see how they stood in front of the paintings, for how long. Only in front of the Velasquez, when Venus stares back (as well as her two flanking guardians, judges, chaperones), did I let the guide fade away from that intimate space.
Before leaving I allowed myself another luxury. I chose two more paintings and spent another forty minutes with them. I thought the surest sign of the guide’s success was that I left the museum with more questions then answers on the personal relationship I may have with a work of art. Thanks again.