• Art History at Seattle U explores how art and visual culture shape the ways we see history. How does an art object reveal ideas about culture differently than a text or document?  Students learn to visually analyze and write about art using Seattle’s museums and galleries and to integrate these encounters with their critical study of scholarship from a variety of perspectives. 
  • Recent courses include: Robots, Machines and the Body in Avant-Garde Art, Latin American Baroque Art, and Art and Place in the American West
  • As an Art History student, students will investigate the history of art and visual culture to understand the original meaning of works of art and make connections to current concerns. Across a range of periods and societies, students will explore the materials, techniques, and presentation strategies that artists and makers employ in their work. students' courses will include visits to local museums and public art sites, gallery talks by curators, and guest lectures by artists and scholars. Students may also take elective courses in Visual Art, Photography, or Design.

  • Art History students should be able to:

    • Articulate histories of visual production and think critically about the stakes of artistic creation by interpreting works of art both as formal structures and in relation to social and cultural contexts.
    • Write convincingly about works of art using composite evidence (visual, historical, and textual) that relies upon primary and secondary textual sources and works of art in a public exhibition.
    • Demonstrate analytical and communication skills by delivering oral presentations about an art historical question modeled on those for a public or scholarly setting.
    • Evaluate and critique a variety of methodological approaches employed within the discipline in a project that will lead to an original conception of an art-historical problem in a major research paper.