The art-history faculty and curriculum aim to provide students with the methodological and critical tools necessary to analyze visual culture and its role in history. The study of art history can significantly enrich a liberal-arts education—especially in a world increasingly shaped by the exchange of visual information.
I. THE ART HISTORY CURRICULUM
The course offerings in art history have been designed to serve the needs of both majors and non-majors.
A. Introductory Courses: Mastery of Subject Matter
1. Objectives
100- and 200-level survey courses provide students with a broad, chronological overview of Western art history from antiquity to the present day; artworks are presented in a social as well as an aesthetic context. Students should be able to differentiate artworks from the following major cultural styles and/or periods: Prehistoric, Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Early Christian, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Realist, Impressionist, Modern, and Postmodern.
2. Assessment
Examinations are generally content-based and largely objective: instructors are seeking to determine whether students have mastered the specialized vocabulary of art history and whether they can place works of art within an appropriate historical, cultural, and stylistic context.
B. Upper-Division Courses: Synthesis, Analysis, and Application
1. Objectives
a. Synthesis
300- and 400-level courses are narrower in scope, generally focusing on particular periods or issues within art history. Depending on the topic, these courses are taught as lectures or seminars. Students learn to synthesize information mastered in introductory survey courses through complex modes of analysis.
b. Analysis
Art historians employ diverse analytical methods, ranging from connoisseurship and stylistic analysis to socio-historical or psychoanalytic interpretation. Instructors demonstrate for students how to discern and deploy methods most appropriate to the artworks under consideration. For instance, discussion of an artwork of dubious authenticity might involve application of connoisseurship skills. In another case, an artwork’s association with contemporary political events would likely require a socio-historical analysis in order to determine the work’s meaning or function.
c. Application
Students learn to apply various methodologies with the ultimate aim of advancing clear and convincing arguments. In art history as in other disciplines, an argument is understood as involving the following: 1) articulation of an interesting and arguable thesis; 2) presentation of compelling evidence in support of the thesis; 3) refutation of possible counter-evidence; 4) summation of the evidence presented leading to a conclusion that affirms the thesis. Students learn to develop arguments using visual as well as textual evidence to support their arguments. For instance, students might be asked to write a paper in which the following thesis is affirmed or disproved: “Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco was commissioned solely as a response to Reformation attacks on the papacy.”
d. Assessment
Students are required to present arguments in written assignments, oral presentations, and examinations, which are then graded by instructors. In most upper-division courses, papers are worked up in multiple drafts so that instructors can give guidance prior to the final assessment. Likewise, most courses involve more than one examination so that students have the opportunity to respond to assessments.
II. THE ART HISTORY MAJOR
Students normally declare the major at the end of the sophomore year. At this time, students are asked to outline a proposed major curriculum following the guidelines described below.
A. Major Curriculum
Majors are required to complete eight art-history courses and three complementary electives. These complementary electives must support an Area of Special Interest within art history. Areas of Special Interest include: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance/Baroque, 18th Century, 19th Century, American, British, Modern, Contemporary, and Asian. For example, a student who pursues Medieval Art as his or her Area of Special Interest might take the following three complementary courses: Medieval Philosophy (Philosophy 302), Medieval Latin (Classics 405), and Medieval Europe (History 303 or 304). Of course, other relevant courses may be proposed. Approval of complementary courses is at the advisor’s discretion.
B. Rationale for Major Curriculum
By developing an Area of Special Interest and organizing a suite of courses in support of this area, students benefit in two ways. First, they are able to delve more deeply into a field that especially appeals to them. An inherently interdisciplinary major, art-historical study depends upon a thorough knowledge of allied social and cultural phenomena. Second, this process requires students to reflect upon their education, to engage with the curriculum thoughtfully, and to identify a field of inquiry meaningful to them.
III. FiINAL ASSESSMENT: THE COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
In the final semester of study, art-history majors must pass a comprehensive examination.
A. Description of Comprehensive Examination
1. Part I
The first part of the comprehensive examination comprises three sections, each of which assesses students’ mastery of the content and analytic skills conveyed in introductory-level courses.
a. Slide Identification
The first part of the art-history comprehensive examination gauges students’ mastery of the chronology of Western art history and the technical vocabulary of the discipline. Students begin this portion of the examination by identifying and contextualizing historically and stylistically twenty pairs of slides chosen from a list of 1800 major monuments from the history of Western art. Students are provided with this list when they declare the art-history major.
b. Unknown Artwork
Students are presented with a slide of an artwork that has not been studied in class and is not likely to be familiar to students. Students must classify this work by culture and period, propose a title and function, and discuss the likely relevance of the work to the history of Western art. This section of the comp requires that students apply their knowledge and analytical skills to a new, unfamiliar object. To succeed in this section, students must engage in synthesis, using old ideas to create new ones and generalizing from limited given facts.
c. Terms
Next, students must define a list of terms used in art-historical analysis. Again, a vocabulary list is provided to students when they become majors.
2. Part II
The second part of the comprehensive exam assesses students’ mastery of the content as well as the modes of analysis and argument presented in upper-division courses. Students are required to integrate what they have learned in order to draw new conclusions.
a. Essays
The second part of the comprehensive examination requires students to write a pair of essays. To answer the essay questions successfully, students must synthesize the knowledge they’ve acquired and develop an argument using the visual arts as primary historical and/or aesthetic evidence. Essay questions are drawn from topics addressed in upper-division courses. Thus, the second part of the comprehensive exam assesses students’ mastery of the content as well as the modes of analysis and argument presented in upper-division courses.
3. Outcomes and Assessment of the Comprehensive Examination
Students who demonstrate a satisfactory mastery of the content and modes of analysis as well as an ability to synthesize what they’ve learned and to apply it to new materials will pass the Comprehensive Examination.
a. Assessment Standards
Satisfactory here is understood as a score of 70% in each of the sections described above. Students who do not demonstrate this level of competence in one or more sections of the comprehensive examination are required to retake those parts of the examination during the next comprehensive-examination period. Students cannot graduate with a degree in art history without passing the entire comprehensive examination.
IV. RUNNING ASSESSMENT
The Department of Art and Art History engages in regular external reviews and in annual self-studies. Two recent changes to the art history program can serve as examples of the Department’s continuing effort to improve our outcomes and sharpen our assessment procedures.
A. Recent Art History Curriculum Modification
We modified the major requirements last year to include the Area of Special Interest described above. As stated, this is intended to provide students with a sense of responsibility for and ownership of their studies while also allowing for deliberate pursuit of especial mastery in a particular field.
B. Art History Comprehensive Examination Modification
We added to our Comprehensive Examination a new section on an unknown work (see Description of Comprehensive Examination, Part I, section b above). In an effort to gauge more accurately our students’ abilities to apply, analyze, and synthesize information, we now test them on an artwork with which they are not familiar. This new section of the Comprehensive Examination will be in place beginning with the class of 2007.
