Programme Specifications

n/a

History of Art, Architecture and Design

September 2023

The programme aims to:

• Offer sound training in the subjects of Fine Art and Art History.

• Provide opportunities for students to develop knowledge, understanding, and proficiency in a broad range of traditional media and processes, starting with drawing as a prerequisite skill, and the fundamental concepts and key skills of artistic practice.

• Provide opportunities for students to develop specialised proficiency in the offered discipline(s) of their choice.

• Offer a flexible curriculum with a variety of pathways.

• Encourage students to develop their aesthetic sensibility, creativity, curiosity, and artistic identity.

• Provide opportunities for students to develop a broad range of subject-specific and transferrable skills that will equip them for further study and/or their future career.

• Provide opportunities for students to develop broad and comparative 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.

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

• Provide opportunities for students to learn from the School of Art’s museum collection, including through direct study of collection objects across the curriculum and specialist module(s) about museum practice.

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

Knowledge and understanding of:

• A1 A broad range of traditional and contemporary media and processes: their nature and techniques, history and development, and the relationship between materials, media and process, and ideas and contexts.

• A2 A broad and comparative range of aspects of art and visual culture from the medieval to the present day, centred on Western Europe in a global context.

• A3 One or more disciplines in depth, informed by staff practice and research, and/or study of the School of Art’s museum collection.

• A4 One or more periods and places in depth, informed by staff research and/or study of the School of Art’s museum collection.

• A5 The ​fundamental issues, contexts, concepts, theories, and debates (historical, contemporary, cultural settings) in art and visual culture.

• A6 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.

• A7 The interpretative methods and forms of questioning distinctive to art history.

• A8 The contemporary art world and cultural industries, including the variety of opportunities for graduate employment; the significance of the work of other practitioners; major developments in current and emerging media and technologies; the role and impact of intellectual property; and the issues which arise from the creative practitioner’s relationships with audiences, clients, markets, environments, users, consumers, and/or participants.

Learning and teaching methods used to enable outcomes to be achieved:

• 1:1 tutorials

• Small group tutorials and crits

• Group studio sessions

• Seminars

• Lectures (synchronous and asynchronous)

• Workshops

• Guided independent practice

• Guided independent research

• Group-oriented problem-based learning

• Q&A sessions

Assessment methods used to enable outcomes to be demonstrated:

• Portfolio

• Exhibition

• Professional projects

• Essays

• Dissertation

• Seen and unseen examinations

• Visual analysis

• Object study

• Reflective writing

• Slide test

• Presentation (live and recorded)

• Exhibition project

• Critical journal

• Book review

• Literature review

• Annotated bibliography

• Essay plan

• B1 Creative skills: creatively and imaginatively conceive, produce, promote, and disseminate artefacts for intellectual and aesthetic contemplation​.

• B2 ​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.

• B3 Interpretive skills : discern and explain the meaning and significance of works of art created by oneself and others, drawing on close observation, personal response, knowledge of techniques, relevant theoretical and methodological debates, historical context, and contemporary relevance; 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.

• B4 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 and to argue on the basis of familiarity both with relevant evidence and with specialist literature.

• B5 Cognitive skills: find creative solutions to aesthetic, practical, and theoretical and problems; generate ideas independently and in response to set briefs; make connections between intention, process, outcome, context, and methods of dissemination; evaluate and apply a variety of theoretical perspectives; 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.

• C1 Making skills: develop a body of ambitious studio work through experimentation, technical innovation, and independentreflection on making in the creative translation of ideas into practice, drawing on research on historical and contemporary contexts, technical skill and knowledge in traditional and contemporary processes, and selecting and using materials, processes, and environments.

• C2 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.

• C3 Presentation skills: present bodies of work professionally and effectively, demonstrating awareness of audience and contexts; present and promote oneself as a creative professional; write text for a variety of purposes to support one’s artistic practice.

• C4 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.

• C5 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.

• D1 Autonomy: generate ideas, concepts, proposals, solutions, or arguments independently; develop an independent practice that is informed by, but not dependent on, the work of others.

• D2 Diligence: undertake and complete set tasks, whether routine and familiar or requiring the acquisition and application of new skills.

• D3 Time management and personal initiative: work to briefs and deadlines, including managing concurrent projects; take responsibility for one’s own work; reflect on one’s own learning and make constructive use of feedback; take shared responsibility for one’s own course of studies.

• D4 Teamwork: the ability to work constructively and productively in teams.

• D5 Critical engagement: formulate and articulate reasoned, independent judgements and arguments, supported by analysis of evidence and experiences, and informed by, but not dependent on, the ideas and arguments of others.

• D6 Problem solving: identify, analyse, and creatively solve problems individually or as part of a team.