Understanding the Visual Arts

Course Number:
ART 102
Transcript Title:
Understanding the Visual Arts
Created:
Jul 25, 2022
Updated:
Jun 29, 2023
Total Credits:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture / Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0
Satisfies Cultural Literacy requirement:
No
Satisfies General Education requirement:
Yes
Grading Options
A-F, P/NP, Audit
Default Grading Options
A-F
Repeats available for credit:
0
Prerequisites

Placement into MTH 65 or MTH 98

Prerequisite/Concurrent 
WR 121 or WR 121Z

Course Description

Introduces aesthetic, historical, and critical issues of the visual arts. Presents aspects of drawing, painting, sculpture and craft in terms of experiencing, appreciating and understanding these aspects in our lives. The series ART 101 and 102 may be taken in any order. Prerequisite: placement into MTH 65 or MTH 98. Prerequisite/concurrent: WR 121 or WR 121Z. Audit available.

Course Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Recognize formal qualities in two and three dimensional arts and read visual elements, artistic and cultural styles, and symbols.
  2. Appreciate and communicate individual viewer response, the uniqueness of a work, its origins and precedent, its potential as an inspiration and influence on later art, and its relationship to a particular cultural moment.
  3. Decipher the visual arts through understanding of historical, social, cultural, economic, and political contexts.
  4. Generalize course content to other art not covered in the course so that he/she can understand and value the visual arts in all-encompassing global ways.

Suggested Outcome Assessment Strategies

The determination of assessment strategies is generally left to the discretion of the instructor. Here are some strategies that you might consider when designing your course: writings (journals, self-reflections, pre writing exercises, essays), quizzes, tests, midterm and final exams, group projects, presentations (in person, videos, etc), self-assessments, experimentations, lab reports, peer critiques, responses (to texts, podcasts, videos, films, etc), student generated questions, Escape Room, interviews, and/or portfolios.

Course Activities and Design

The determination of teaching strategies used in the delivery of outcomes is generally left to the discretion of the instructor. Here are some strategies that you might consider when designing your course: lecture, small group/forum discussion, flipped classroom, dyads, oral presentation, role play, simulation scenarios, group projects, service learning projects, hands-on lab, peer review/workshops, cooperative learning (jigsaw, fishbowl), inquiry based instruction, differentiated instruction (learning centers), graphic organizers, etc.

Course Content

Theoretical

  • Theory and criticism in the history of art
  • Pattern-based thinking and historical process
  • Various interpretations of art
  • Art and gender
  • Creativity and the impulse to make art

Stylistic and Interpretive

  • Visual literacy
  • Art media and artistic technique
  • "Seeing and knowing"
  • Iconography
  • Formal principles and elements of fine art

Social and Cultural

  • Other peoples and their histories, values, and culture
  • Art and economics
  • Art and the social fabric
  • Art and religion
  • Art and politics
  • Art and gender
  • Relationship of culture and style
  • Art and cultural transmission
  • Historical impact of art
  • The influence of art on one's own culture
  • The influence of art on relations with other cultures
  • Art and artists
  • The impulse to make art
  • The Gestalt of art
  • The role of the artist in society
  • Biography
  • Geography and its influence on art and culture
  • Artifact recovery, analysis, restoration, and incorporation into a larger historical fabric

Competencies and Skills:
The successful student should be able to:

  • Work creatively with art historical data, using it to develop principles of art history
  • Recognize and appraise patterns in historical phenomena assess the ways in which an art object is affected by our own vantage point
  • Recognize and discriminate among various styles of art
  • Trace the development of art from one period to another
  • Analyze formally works of art and appreciate the interrelationship of its elements
  • Determine symbolism in art
  • Employ iconographical nomenclature
  • Express the relationship of art to society and culture to style
  • Analyze the "meaning" of art objects through understanding of historical, social, and political context
  • Use specific terminology to describe works of art
  • Transfer to a four year college and continue a course of study in the field of art history, fine art, anthropology, and history in general

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills:

  • Oral and written command of college level English