Portraits: Hogarth and his dog

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Portraits mini-series, episode 17) is a short documentary about a self-portrait by the painter William Hogarth, from 1745, now in Tate Britain, London. A single narrator guides the eye around the picture: Hogarth's face in an oval painting inside the painting, his dog, a pug called Trump, sitting in front of it, and books by three famous writers, Shakespeare, Swift and Milton, under the portrait. On the palette, a curved line and the words "The line of beauty" show Hogarth's idea that a curved line is more beautiful than a straight one. The script also notes that he first painted himself in a wig, then chose a cap. It is a comprehension episode: the narration describes the picture in the present simple, with a few past simple verbs, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (self-portrait, palette). The study topic is portraits and self-portraits: what a picture says about its sitter.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (a pet, books, or something else?) to let learners say what they would put in their own self-portrait. Learners should know the words dog, book and colour, and be able to read 1745.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged portrait-self-portrait (5e, "Portrait, autoportrait", Cycle 4). The episode targets CEFR level A2-.