Art & Art History
The Department of Art and Art History is the administrative umbrella for two distinct major programs: art studio and art history. Majors within the department can be pursued in either or both areas.
Art Studio:
The Art Studio major enables students to become fluent in visual languages—their analytical and critical vocabularies and the rigors of their techniques and methods—to explore intellectual issues and human experience. Students learn techniques associated with various media while developing a personal creative vision, beginning with basic studies in drawing and introductory art history. More focused studies train students in the practices of Architecture, Drawing, Ecological Design, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Product Design, Sculpture and Time-Based Media. The program seeks to reflect the diversity of current technical and intellectual approaches to art and design and welcomes interdisciplinary experimentation.
Art History:
The Art History program aims to provide student majors with a strong historical and theoretical understanding of the visual and material environment created by humankind. Art history is founded on the premise that artifacts embody, engage, and shape the beliefs and values of the persons, groups, and societies who made, commissioned, and used them. Students will learn to document and interpret changes in human society by taking works of art and other objects of material culture as their primary sources. They will also critically analyze and interpret written texts to help reconstruct and illuminate the contexts—social, economic, political, philosophical, and religious—in which artifacts were produced, used, and understood.
