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Summer Camps
National Gallery and Trafalgar Square Excursion Class
Remember: listen carefully to your teacher, and respect other visitors to the
gallery – walk (don’t run) and talk quietly.
A. Vocabulary matching: while you’re walking around the gallery, you will see
many different works of art. There are many technical words used to
describe them. Match the vocabulary terms to the definitions.
1. abstract art art created in the present day
2. composition The area of a picture that
appears closest.
3. background The object or person that the
viewer is focused on
4. still life shows an object or group of
objects, often fruit or everyday
things.
5. contemporary A style of art which changes the
art objects to make them simpler,
rather than realistic
6. middle ground a three-dimensional piece often
made of stone or metal
7. landscape shows a person, or a small
number of people
8. foreground red, blue, and yellow – these
colours can be mixed together
to make all the other colours
9. portrait the organisation of the
elements of design in an art
work
10. focal point the parts of a composition
which appear furthest from the
viewer
11. primary colours area in the picture between the
foreground and the background
12. statue / shows a country or city scene
sculpture
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Summer Camps
B. Picture hunt: with a partner, use the clues and the room numbers to find the
paintings. Then complete the table.
Room Clue Artist Painting Name Paintin
numb Name g Date
er
43 This is a Post-Impressionist
painting. Some young men sit
next to a river, and two are
swimming. There are boats and
a factory in the background.
34 One of the most important
British paintings and probably
the most well-known portrait of
a horse. There background is of
a neutral, pale gold colour.
43 This is a portrait of a blue-eyed
woman sitting in a relaxed pose
with a background covered in
abstract shapes.
35 A man stands next to a tree,
while a woman sits on a bench
beside him. They are looking out
over a classic English farm
landscape. They are a married
couple.
43 The picture shows some
sunflowers in a vase. They style
has a lot of texture, and there
are many shades of yellow
38 A magnificent view of the Grand
Canal in Venice during the
annual regatta. There are
gondolas racing up the middle of
the canal and lots of spectators
gathers on the sides.
34 This is a painting of two boats,
one an old sailing ship, being
pulled up a river by a steam
boat. It is sunset, and the sky is
many shades of yellow and
orange and blue.
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C. Which paintings have you seen that you like? Write down the names of your favourite
three paintings (or artists):
1. _______________________________________________________
2. _______________________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________________
D. Using words from exercise A, write a short paragraph describing your favourite
painting:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________
E. Talk to other people in your class – does anyone like the same paintings as you? What
were their favourite paintings about?
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Summer Camps
F. Trafalgar Square: read the text below and fill in the missing words from the ones in
the box.
tourist since years British
ancient empty killed smallest
hundred metres public lions
Trafalgar Square is a public space and ______________ attraction in the centre of London –
in fact, the exact centre of London is the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, which is next
to Trafalgar Square. There has been a church on that site ____________ the 1200s. The
square is often used for ______________ events, and also for political demonstrations.
The name Trafalgar Square remembers the Battle of Trafalgar, a _____________ naval
victory against Napoleon, which took place in 1805, off the coast of Spain. Admiral
Horatio Nelson won the battle, but was _________ during the fighting – and in the middle
of Trafalgar Square is Nelson’s Column. Nelson famously had only one arm and one eye.
Nelson’s Column was built in 1843, is 51.6 _____________ high, and the statue of Nelson is
three times taller than Nelson was in real life. Nelson’s Column is guarded by four bronze
______________, and the friezes at the base show scenes from the Battle of Trafalgar.
There are several other commemorative statues in the square – famously including the
Fourth Plinth, which stood empty for over 150 _____________ until 1999, when it was
decided that the plinth should be occupied by a series of temporary works. In 2009, a
_____________ British people stood on the plinth for one day each, in a work by Anthony
Gormley called One and Other. The current work has been there since March 2018, and
is called The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist. The artist, Michael Rakowitz, recreated an
____________ Assyrian statue which had been in the Mosul Museum in Iraq. The statue is
made of recycled date syrup cans.
Admiralty Arch marks the entrance to Trafalgar Square from The Mall – the tree-lined
road to __________________. This was built in 1910 to honour Queen Victoria.
In the southeast corner of the square is the ______________ police station in Britain – big
enough for just one police officer! See if you can spot it on your way to the tube at
Charing Cross.
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G. What would you put on the fourth plinth? Draw your idea in the box below:
