Visual literacy and visual acuity – looking with awareness and intention – are fundamental to liberal arts
education. The Department of Art and Visual Culture centers creation and critique, providing foundations
in studio practice and in contemporary and historical analysis, while attending to how power and privilege
have shaped our fields in their local and global contexts. Students pursue interdisciplinary pathways to
learning, situating making, materials and media, objects and monuments, and ideas and ideologies in new
frames.
The major offers two tracks: one, in history and criticism; the other, in studio art. Students intending to
study abroad must discuss fulfillment of major requirements with their advisor and the department chair in
advance. Students planning graduate study in architecture, landscape architecture, or design are advised to
confer with the department chair early in their College career in order to plan appropriate undergraduate
programs.
History of Art and Criticism
- Students should engage in well-informed critical analysis of visual material and production.
- Students should develop an independent voice, demonstrated through critical analysis or creative production.
- Students should be familiar with a variety of cultures, traditions and disciplinary approaches to visual material and production.
- Students should engage in ethical practices and situate their work, scholarly or productive, in the context of the broader field.
- Students should choose methods or techniques that are appropriate for the scholarly or creative product.
- Students should demonstrate the ability to use language, oral or written, to describe, analyze or contextualize visual material or production.
Studio
- To work more than they ever have, with more intensity and concentration, at one thing.
- To begin to see and investigate relationships between making, thinking, form and meaning.
- To develop and experimental attitude so that there is a willingness to take risks and persevere.
- To immerse themselves in historical and contemporary art in order to feed their own work.
- To work at developing a productive critical relationship with their own work and the work of others.
- To begin to contextualize their work and their critical positions in relation to historical and contemporary precedents.
- To be able to write honestly and articulately about their work.
- To make their work better.
- To develop a coherent body of work.