The curriculum for art history and visual-art studies at SUU maintains objectives that teach students to engage with the discipline by using established research methods which help not only to develop a mastery of the required writing and presentation components of a given course, but also to build students’ command of their analytical, investigative and communicative skills. The following information provides a summary of the guidelines in place for art history, presented here as an example of research-oriented disciplines. The art history program’s mission is to satisfy the following student learning objectives: a.) acquisition of a breadth and depth of knowledge in art history and, upon successful completion of this General Education Humanities requirement, demonstration of a developing competency in at least two and as many as all five of these areas, as defined by the essential learning outcomes for the designation in R470 Appendix:
ARTH 2710 Essential Learning Outcome No. 1 (SUU Essential Learning Outcome 2.2.1 – Humanities) Examine how humanities artifacts (such as oral narratives, literature, philosophy, media, and artworks) express the human condition;
ARTH 2710 Essential Learning Outcome No. 2 (SUU Essential Learning Outcome 2.1.1 – Arts) Apply artistic concepts and ideas drawn from traditions of artistic creation and theory to better engage with, analyze and understand a creative work;
ARTH 2710 Essential Learning Outcome No. 3 (SUU Essential Learning Outcome 2.1.3 – Arts) Examine connections between art and society and articulate how the arts are a historical and cultural phenomenon.
ARTH 2710 Essential Learning Outcome No. 4 (SUU Essential Learning Outcome 6.1.2) Knowledge of Human Cultures – engagement with "big questions" – both contemporary and enduring – in the sciences, mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts.
ARTH 2710 Essential Learning Outcome No. 5 (SUU Essential Learning Outcome 6.3.2) Demonstration of a foundational understanding of the creative arts.
More specifically, at the completion of ARTH 2710: Art History Survey 1, students will have a developing ability –
1. to identify key works of art by artist, title, date, historical period, and geographic region;
2. to explain art historical terms and concepts and use these terms to determine the significance of works of art from various periods and geographic regions;
3. to analyze and articulate the formal and iconographic elements of selected artworks from the prehistoric art through the Late Renaissance;
4. to convey critical thinking skills to analyze works of art and the socio-historical context surrounding their production; and
5. to learn about the material processes in the creation of artworks from prehistoric art through the Late Renaissance.