Where to Start
All cultures produce meaningful, often powerful, visual representations. Even the way we shape the built environment around us expresses something about and for us. The production of such artifacts and spaces is shaped by and forms traditions that we study as valuable, meaningful, and historical. Learning these practices and understanding their historical production is what we do. Our students are passionate about making, looking at, and understanding art and architecture.
Our Courses
The Art & Art History department offers classes in Studio Art and Art History.
- Art History (ARTH) courses explore artistic traditions based in time and culture. The focus is on teaching interpretive, research, and communication skills.
- Studio Art (ART) courses teach hands-on, technical skills. We offer classes in drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and architecture.
Non-Majors
Not everyone who takes art or art history courses is planning to major in these disciplines. Most ARTH courses do not have prerequisites, and many are cross-listed with other programs. A course or two in art or art history can help you look at other majors in new ways. We have a lot to offer to non-majors.
Getting Started for Majors
All Art & Art History majors take at least one of the following courses, regardless of concentration:
- any 200-level ARTH course at or above ARTH 230
- ART 211 - Drawing and Color or ART 212 - Three-dimensional Design: Form and Space
We recommend that anyone interested in majoring in Art & Art History complete one of those courses, as well as an art history course, by the end of the sophomore year.
Check the Undergraduate Catalog for a complete list of all the courses we offer. We don't teach every course every semester, and the subjects of topic courses change, so check out the Dynamic Schedule to see which ones are coming up.
