Programme Specifications

The School of Art provides a setting where art is created and debated, exhibited and experienced, where art history students study alongside practising artists, curators and published historians.

The programme aims to:

1. Offer advanced training in the discipline of Art History.

2. Provide opportunities for students to develop advanced specialist knowledge and understanding of histories of art and visual culture across places and periods, as well as in-depth knowledge and understanding about specialist topics through original, tutor negotiated research.

3. Develop advanced understanding of relevant conceptual, theoretical and historical frameworks, applicable to Art History.

4. Provide opportunities for students to develop a broad range of advanced subject-specific and transferrable skills that will equip them for further study and/or their future career (in particular as art historians, art educators, or professionals in the artworld and wider heritage and cultural sector).

5. Introduce students to a variety of advanced interpretative methods and forms of questioning to encourage critical and historical engagement with art and visual culture.

6. Encourage students to communicate their research and articulate ideas through seminar presentations and discussion.

7. Provide opportunities for students to learn from the School of Art’s museum collection, including through direct study of collection objects and involvement in museum practice.

8. Provide, where required, access to art studios, print workshops, photographic and digital equipment.

The programme provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge and understanding, skills, qualities and other attributes in the following areas:

A1 The fundamental issues, contexts, concepts, theories, and debates (historical, contemporary, cultural settings) in art and visual culture and how they relate to the students’ own research.

A2 The key intellectual tools, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies of Art History.

A3 The concepts, values, and debates that inform study and practice in the field of art history, set in the context of the development of Art History as a discipline.

A4 The interpretative methods and forms of questioning distinctive to Art History.

A5 Factors related to for initial employment in Higher Education teaching in Art History.

A6 The contemporary art world and cultural industries, including the variety of opportunities for graduate employment; the significance of the work of other Art Historians; major developments in current and emerging media and technologies; the role and impact of intellectual property; relationship with professional contexts beyond academia (including the arts and heritage sector, the art market, and media).

Learning and teaching methods used to enable outcomes to be achieved

• Lectures (synchronous and asynchronous)

• Seminars

• 1:1 and small group tutorials

• Workshops

• Guided independent research

• Group-oriented problem-based learning

• Q&A sessions

Assessment methods used to enable outcomes to be demonstrated:

• Essays

• Dissertation

• Seen and unseen examinations

• Visual analysis

• Artefact study

• Reflective writing

• Slide test

• Presentation (live and recorded)

• Exhibition project

• Critical journal

• Book review

• Literature review

• Fine art portfolio

• Annotated bibliography

• Essay plan

10.2.1 Intellectual skills

B1 Visual skills: close and systematic visual examination, informed by appropriate knowledge of materials, techniques, and cultural contexts; clear and precise description, using ordinary and specialist terminology as appropriate and demonstrating awareness of the inherently translative relationship between the visual and the verbal; technical evaluation of artefacts considering materiality, production, methodology, and cultural context.

B2 Interpretive skills: set the artefacts studied within appropriate historical, intellectual, cultural, and institutional contexts; draw upon personal responses to artefacts distinct from other relevant meanings; develop arguments from close observation of artefacts; produce logical and structured narratives and arguments, supported by relevant evidence; relate the processes of making artefacts to their cultural functions; understand the role of artefacts as carriers of meaning and value; understand the iconographic value, informing culture, and the creative and production value; identify and analyse the development of and interrelation between forms and genres.

B3 Historical skills: use appropriate methodologies for locating, assessing and interpreting primary sources; select relevant evidence from the wide range of types of evidence used in the subject area, and apply it to the examination of historical issues and problems; produce logical and structured narratives and arguments supported by relevant evidence; marshal and appraise critically other people’s arguments

B4 Cognitive skills: analyse arguments, tasks, and bodies of evidence, breaking them down into, and effectively dealing with, their component parts; bring evidence or ideas of different sorts or from different sources together in a productive way; identify and present the key elements of an argument; discriminate between alternative arguments and approaches; ability to apply knowledge and experience so as to make appropriate decisions in complex and incompletely charted contexts.

B5 Open-mindedness: be open and receptive to new things and ideas; identify the merits of unfamiliar arguments or cultural artefacts and the merits or shortcomings of familiar ones; appreciate and evaluate divergent points of view and to communicate their qualities.

10.2.2 Practical skills

C1 Research skills: capacity for critical, effective, and testable information retrieval and organisation; ability to design and carry out a research project with limited tutorial guidance.

C2 Communication skills: communicate information, arguments, and ideas cogently and effectively within a range of discourses as appropriate to particular audiences, and in written, spoken, or other form using appropriate visual aids and information technology resources; particular abilities in the deployment of visual material in conjunction with written, oral, and other forms of communication; the ability to listen effectively, and to participate constructively in discussion and debate.

C3 Museum skills: apply knowledge of the theoretical, methodological, and professional principles in contemporary museum practice to develop a range of techniques related to museum work, including object research, museum communication, exhibition and interpretive planning, collections management, and collections care.

C4. Professional skills: fundamental skills appropriate to teaching, learning, and assessment in Higher Education.