Curriculum links
Learning areas
Which strands will it fit with?
- Social Studies - Identity, Culture, and Organisation, Continuity and Change
- The Arts - Visual Arts
Key Competencies
Using language, symbols, and texts - Students will consider how the subject and surroundings have been depicted. Students will analyse visual messages that convey the artist's point of view of Māori culture at that time.
Thinking - Students will compare this Goldie work to the work of Robyn Kahukiwa (Ko Hineteiwaiwa, ko Hinekorako, ko Rona Whakamau Tai), to inferences of how culture, societal attitudes, era, and gender contribute to artist portrayal of subject matter.
Level of achievement
Social Studies levels 1-8, the Arts levels 1-4
Year group
Years 1-13
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Which topics of study can it support?
- New Zealand Society Past and Present
- New Zealand History
- New Zealand Art
- Pūrākau - Storytelling
How long may this take?
Allow 5-10 minutes for discussion.
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Where do I find it?
Why should I take my class to visit this?
- See a painting by one of New Zealand’s better known and controversial artists, Charles Frederick Goldie.
- An excellent introduction to some of the layers of information and attitudes that can be found in New Zealand’s art history.
What is there to do there?
- Be amazed at how realistic a painting can be.
- See how art can convey a certain ideology.
- Examine an example of a European belief about Māori at the end of the nineteenth century - ‘smoothing the pillow of the dying race’.
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What should I know about this?
- Goldie completed this particular painting of Ina Te Papatahi, a kuia or elder from Ngā Puhi, in 1903. In total, he painted Ina eighteen times.
- It is painted in Goldie’s usual romanticised style. Many Pākehā in the early twentieth century believed that Māori were either going to die out or become assimilated.
- It is named Darby and Joan after characters from a sentimental eighteenth century English ballad - the term has come to represent any elderly couple or lifelong partners. Ina is thought to be Joan, and the carved ancestral figure she is sitting next to is thought to be Darby.
Possible topics for discussion
- Would you like this painting to be hanging in your home? Why/why not?
- Do you think this painting is set before or after Europeans arrived in New Zealand? What clues can you find in the painting to support your argument? This painting was done after Europeans came to New Zealand, as indicated by her European style of dress.
- What does the title Darby and Joan refer to? Why do you think Goldie has chosen to use these names and not the subjects’ real names? Eighteenth century characters from an English ballad, 'Darby and Joan' has come to be a term for any elderly couple. The title refers to Ina Te Papatahi and the carved ancestral figure as Joan and Darby.
- Do you think this portrait is a true depiction of the social environment in the early 1900s?
- Do you think the artist painted his subject in his studio or as you see her?
- What might she be thinking?
- Do you think Māori and European viewers may have different reactions to this painting? Why/why not?
- Why do you think this is a controversial painting? Get students to think about the title and the way the subject has been portrayed.
- Compare this painting done in 1903 and more recent art work depicting Māori women, such as Robyn Kahukiwa’s Ko hine te iwaiwa, ko hine korako, ko rona whakamau tai (1993) painting in the Mana Whenua exhibition next to the cloak case on Level 4.
- If Goldie was still alive, how would he possibly depict Māori culture today?
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Further information
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