Art History Minor

Norwich students in all disciplines have the opportunity to broaden their college experience by earning a minor degree in art history.  An Art History Minor helps students develop their awareness and knowledge of art as it has played a role in the formation and understanding of human culture.

Goals:

1.  Cultivate and develop an understanding and appreciation of art as it has developed over time and across diverse cultures.

2.  Assess the meaning and significance of artworks in relation to human culture in multiple ways, such as:

• Art traditions as expressive of human identity.

• Art production as embedded in economic and cultural systems.

• Art practice as having technical, social, educational, and aesthetic dimensions.
   

3.  Build research and writing skills pertinent to addressing art, including description and analysis is visual, formal, spatial, and material aspects of artworks.

The fine arts offer a profound testimony to meaning and significance of the arts to their own and function in a variety of ways:  they illuminate the ideas, values, beliefs, manners, and customs of an age; they inform us of how artists interpret and understand the visible world in which they live; they alert us to moral and ethical perspectives which condition the artist's choice and treatment of the subject matter.

Courses in the Fine Arts (FA) explore the history of art, including why and what the artist creates; assess the changing nature and functions of art; probe the relationship of the artist to society; and examine the varied systems of beliefs and values that affect the discipline. All FA courses may be used towards fulfilling the Arts & Humanities General Education.

A Design Arts major is ineligible to declare the minor.