The Five Key Skills Students Should Learn In Beginner Art History Courses
Yesterday I shared that I am not teaching Slide IDs in my introductory Art History course that I will be adjunct teaching in the fall. Presenting an artwork and demanding that students memorize its title, artist, medium, date, and era/culture does not help them learn. In fact, it can actually be a hindrance to learning, but Slide IDs are so endemic to the Art History discipline it can be hard to imagine what else students should be doing. With that in mind, I want to share what skills I will be focusing on teaching my students.
1. Close Looking and Visual Analysis
Visual analysis is one of the fundamental, core Art History skills. In Art History, students learn to read artworks in the same way that they read a book or an article in an English class. It’s not just about reading for content, but also about understanding how the book works.
The same is true of Art History. Our first experience of an artwork is visual and emotional, but we can still logically understand how the artist has composed the artwork to achieve that effect. Students should learn the basic vocabulary to discuss form, color, composition, and symbolism to describe artworks.
It’s also key for students to learn that art can be understood and studied whether or not they personally happen to like it. Separating your opinion of an artwork from your understanding is a key skill built through close looking.
2. Comparison Between Artworks
Comparison is one of the key components of Art History. Two artworks can depict the same subject but be vastly different in their end effect.
Comparing artworks can help students to understand the evolution of an idea over time, to understand how different cultures or artists approach the same idea, or to understand an artwork they have never seen before by comparing it to something they are already familiar with.
Too often introductory Art History students think that to compare something means to make a value judgement, i.e. which one is “better.” Doing comparisons that emphasize analysis rather than opinion is a key skill for students of all disciplines to learn.
3. Researching and finding information
There have been some worrying reports that say that increasingly students are turning to websites like TikTok to find information, rather than Google. Google has its own problems, to be sure, but TikTok is even worse at funneling students towards verifiable, scholarly information.
Students don’t necessarily need to complete an entire research paper to build good research skills. In Art History students should be able to locate scholarly sources, navigate a museum web page, and evaluate sources for trustworthiness.
In particular I want my students to get comfortable navigating the websites of the museums in our area, learning about upcoming exhibitions and finding information about artworks.
4. Constructing a thesis
If students learn no other core writing skills during their time in college, they should be learning how to structure a thesis. A good thesis is the key to good writing. It helps them to develop an argument and, if followed correctly, it will structure the rest of their paper in a clear manner.
I am hoping to have my students practice thesis writing for one of their assignments before they write anything like a longer paper.
5. Bringing visual analysis outside of the classroom
I am not naive enough to believe that I will turn all of my students into dedicated art lovers. They may never go in a museum or look up an artwork’s meaning online after the course is finished. Still, I want to get my students used to identifying art that is being referenced in the world around them.
Advertisements, magazine photoshoots, music videos, and more constantly reference Art History. If students can identify what art those pieces of media are referencing, and maybe think about why the company would want to reference that media, that will put them on the right track to visual literacy.
Art History is about more than memorization, there are key skills that students should be building to improve their visual literacy. These are just a few that I will be building into my class in the spring.
Hi, I’m Mary! I’m an art researcher who loves teaching about art. If you enjoyed this piece and want to hear more about art history, museums, and my adjuncting journey, consider giving me a follow. Thank you for your support!
