Art History Major Requirements: Concentration in Visual Arts
The Art History Major with a Concentration in Visual Arts offers students the opportunity for students to approach Art History from the standpoint of studio practice. Here, students have the option of doing a studio thesis instead of a written one. The faculty, who are practicing artists, work closely with Visual Arts Concentrators, assisting them in planning a program that incorporates their artistic interests while meeting departmental requirements.
Art History Major Requirements: Concentration in Visual Arts
Requires a minimum of 12 art history courses (minimum of 39 credits) including:
1. BC1001 (Fall) and BC1002 (Spring) Introduction to Art History. This two-course sequence is required.
2. Required course to be taken in the spring semester of the Junior or Senior year
BC3031 Imagery and Form in the Arts (spring)
3. Senior Visual Arts Thesis Project
Senior Art History Majors with a Concentration in Visual Arts will research and create a thesis project in consultation with faculty members and peers in the Visual Arts. They will also attend the two-semester Advanced Senior Studio sequence, participate in group critiques, and guest artist lectures scheduled during the academic year. They will present visual art projects in two public group exhibitions planned at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters of the senior year. Note there is no one-semester Senior Visual Arts Thesis Project option.
The following two-course studio sequence is required for the Senior Visual Art Thesis Project.
BC3530 Advanced Senior Studio I (Fall)
BC3531 Advanced Senior Studio II (Spring)
4. One Seminar Course in Art History
5. One 19th, 20th or 21st-century elective course in Art History.
6. Two elective courses in Art History
7. Three elective courses in Visual Arts-Studio
*Courses in film can apply toward the major requirements.
*Studio courses cannot exceed 30 points of credits.
SENIOR THESIS PROJECT FOR ART HISTORY MAJORS WITH A CONCENTRATION IN VISUAL ARTS
The Senior Visual Arts Thesis Project for Art History Majors with a Concentration in Visual Arts is scheduled in the last year of the major. By that time, you will have taken Imagery and Form BC3031 and a variety of Art History and Studio courses, which may help form your approach to your thesis project.
Advanced Senior Studio I BC3530 (Fall) and Advanced Senior Studio II BC3531 (Spring) provides a two-semester framework in which to complete a senior project. Your senior project should be a cohesive body of work based on original concepts and executed with some technical proficiency. A paper approximately seven-to-ten pages in length will accompany your senior project outlining your artistic goals. This paper will serve as an artist’s statement and should describe what your work would mean to viewers as well as situate your work vis-a-vis artistic precedents.
You also will take part in a senior thesis exhibition, which will be accompanied by a catalog. Here, you will be responsible for both installing your work and for taking it down at the end of the show.
GRADES
Two grades will be awarded in connection with your work on the Senior Project. One will evaluate the way in which you have fulfilled the course requirements, that is, the regularity of your meetings and the effort you have made in completing your thesis. This grade will be a letter grade. The second grade will be awarded on the basis of the evaluation of the Senior Project itself. This evaluation will consider whether or not the aims of the project were met: a pass with distinction, a pass or fail.
OPTION FOR ART HISTORY AND VISUAL ARTS - WRITTEN SENIOR THESIS
Art History Majors with a Concentration in Visual Arts may choose to do a written Art History Senior Thesis instead of the Visual Arts Senior Project. To do this they must: Notify their adviser of their intention to do so by the end of their junior year with permission from both the Visual Arts Director and Art History chair. They must then take both Methods and Theories of Art History (BC3970) & the written Art History senior research seminar (BC3959 and BC3960). These three courses required for the written thesis option replace the Visual Arts sequence, BC3031 Imagery and Form in the Arts and Advanced Senior Studio I BC3530 (Fall) and Advanced Studio II BC3531 (Spring).