Art History Major: Required Coursework

To complete a BA degree in Art History, you will take 36 semester hours in Art History. The curriculum begins with ARTH 2500: Introduction to the History of Art (or equivalent) and closes with ARTH 4950: Art History Senior Seminar. You will conclude your study with a senior paper, choosing a topic while enrolled in ARTH 4950. The curriculum provides you with flexibility in the choice of upper-division art history courses, and you bear some responsibility for the design of your own program. Those with specific interests can specialize to some extent, and those who seek a relatively broad experience can do so. Read further for an explanation about the various requirements. To track your progress through the program, you may review your unofficial transcript (Degree Audit Report - DARS) at any time by logging into the Campus Information System.

ARTH 2500 Introduction to the History of Art

The course serves as the foundation class for your upper-division courses in the major and should be taken in advance of any other art history course. You will investigate the ways in which works of art and architecture have developed within a culture and how they continue to exert influence upon the present. We discuss how to analyze and interpret these artifacts and to write about them using methods of critical thought. You can become skilled in observing and interpreting your own visual environment. Your goal is to become more aware of art and architecture as visual embodiments of ideas and values.

Credit for Art History Advanced Placement Examination

If you earned a score of 3, 4 or 5, you can be awarded eight semester hours of University credit when it is used as a General Education fulfillment. The procedure is handled through the Admissions Office (250 SSB, 801-581-7286). It is necessary to earn a score of 4 or 5 in order to be excused from ARTH 2500 when it is used to satisfy art history major requirements.

Upper-Division Art History

The majority of coursework in art history is comprised of upper-division courses at the 3000-level and the 4000-level. The curriculum is designed to provide you with opportunities to learn about art and architecture of many cultures. Areas of concentration include Asia, Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque period, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the twentieth century and contemporary art. We recommend that you work closely with the art history undergraduate advisor and your faculty mentor to create a program of study that coordinates your interests. A series of courses successfully completed in multiple areas ensure that you have achieved an appropriate level of competency in art history.

It is important to recognize that courses at the 3000-level serve as broader investigations of a period of art while courses at the 4000-level focus on particular topics and issues. You will receive greater satisfaction from your courses if you complete the 3000-level course before taking the 4000-level course in the same emphasis. A two-course sequence can provide both the fundamental groundwork as well as a more sophisticated exposure to art and architecture from a particular culture.

ARTH 4950 and Senior Paper

You should enroll in ARTH 4950 Art History Senior Seminar in the Fall Semester of the year in which you plan to graduate. In this seminar, you will actively participate in problematizing issues and planning research strategies. You will learn, through readings and discussions, where traditional and contemporary art history methodologies intersect and how they can lead to a reasoned interpretation of a work of art. The course will be taught on a rotating basis among the art history faculty, and the individual professor will define specific goals and methods of analysis for a particular class.

During the semester, you will identify a topic for your senior paper. The aim of the paper is to allow you to carry out advanced, independent research: to define an art historical issue and to organize a thoughtful research strategy. Ambitious papers will make a contribution to the discipline of Art History through original thought. You might choose to expand on a topic that captured your interest earlier in an art history course - perhaps already partly developed in a term paper. You are welcome to write on new material but should think carefully about how much advance preparation will be necessary to demonstrate original research. In consultation with the professor of ARTH 4950, you will ask an art history faculty member to supervise the preparation of your senior paper. Approval of your topic for the senior paper by the faculty supervisor should be accomplished before the end of the Fall Semester.

You should plan to complete the writing of your senior paper, independent of your normal class schedule, during the Spring Semester. Your faculty advisor will help you organize a timetable of due dates for the outline, the preliminary bibliography, one or more rough drafts, and your final version. Your completed senior paper should contain a title page, the body of the paper, scholarly footnotes, photocopied images relevant to the topic, and a bibliography. It should be submitted to your faculty advisor two weeks before the end of Spring Semester classes.

You are eligible to compete for presentation of your senior paper at the annual Art History Symposium, held towards the end of the Spring Semester (see Capstone Experience).

Art history coursework must be taken for a letter grade. Credit/No Credit is not an option for these classes, as they are required for the art history major. No grade below C- will count toward fulfilling the art history major requirements.