紐約州立大學水牛城分校

Why study Art History BA at UB?

The Art History program is committed to exploring the visual arts (painting, sculpture, performance art, graphic arts, architecture, photography and decorative arts) and today’s broad and immersive visual world as tools for exploring and decoding culture. The Art History faculty members use a diverse range of methodological approaches to help students attain the necessary tools and knowledge to understand our visual world. Courses are offered from ancient to contemporary art history, with specific attention to social history, gender, sexuality and race, post-colonialism, the context of history and politics, and myth and narrative. An art history major is ideal for students who wish to pursue a career in the arts, but it is equally valuable for those seeking to develop visual, analytical and communication skills.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of all requirements, the student will have knowledge to:

• Acquire analytical skills to enable them to access meanings in visual images and develop a visual literacy
• Acquire a solid understanding of the roles of art and visual culture in a particular historical period and/or world culture
• Develop skills in critical writing, including the organization of a thesis and its defense
• Acquire skills and methods tor conducting historical research
• Acquire a substantial understanding of art as a specific epistemic and historically important category of human expression and discovery

Career Outlook

As our culture moves increasingly from text-based literacy to visual literacy, the ability to analyze images will increasingly position our students at the center of contemporary culture. We examine not only what images may mean, but as importantly, how they mean. Art history provides a student with a broad overview of world history and draws upon multiple disciplines. Majors receive an excellent liberal arts background and some pursue careers as curators or archivists at the many museums and galleries across the country. Others use the art history degree to hone their intellectual abilities for careers in media, advertising, publishing, fashion, design and art therapy. Students go on to graduate school, seeking to teach and do research, or work in museums, businesses, government and non-profit organizations at a high level.