College Life

Private Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• University of Pennsylvania—Philadelphia
• Brown University
• New York University
• Columbia University
• Harvard University

State Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• University of California—Los Angeles
• University of California—Berkeley
• University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
• University of Virginia
• University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill

Classes in the Major

Survey of Western Art. This is kind of your bread and butter. In all likelihood, you'll have at least one other survey class. Think of this as time in a tanning bed. Not that it's going to give you cancer (art history is not a proven carcinogen), but that this gives you your base. Surveys let you know, in a broad sense, what kind of art you're going to be looking at before you start placing it into context willy-nilly. Learn the big names, the big movements, and the big schools of thought before you figure out your favorites.

Archaeology. Some art is so old that it qualifies as a whole other discipline. The reason for this is that most western artists agreed that the ancient Greeks had pretty good taste in art. It's why statues look the way they do, even though the white marble look actually came about because the paint chipped off. Seriously, Greek statues used to be an eye-searing riot of color, and probably wouldn't be as popular if the paint stuck around. Anyway, if you want to understand art, you need to understand the Greeks.

Introduction to Architecture. Buildings are art. Well, some buildings are art. Chances are no one has ever declared a Pizza Hut to be a heartbreaking referendum on the plight of the postmodern man. If they have, they might be a dangerous, crazy person. Some buildings are definitely art, and the architecture is based on the prevailing opinions of art at the time. This sort of course helps expand your definition of art, and gives you some really good dinner party conversation. "I say, old bean, are those rococo columns pindersliced?" We have no idea if that's even a sentence, but after this class, you will.

Symbols and Stories in Art. This shouldn't come as a surprise, but art is all about telling a story. It's not the story that's actually up there…in that case, all paintings would be about paintings, and that level of meta-commentary took some time for people to be bored enough to create. The trick about telling an entire story in a single picture comes down to symbols, where you're saying a whole lot with very little. What does it mean when the subject of the painting is dropping his pants and waving his butt at the viewer? Get to that deeper meaning.

Art Today. Fun fact: history is happening right now. It's true. History doesn't stop because we've chosen some arbitrary time to read about it. No, it keeps chugging right along. So what's happening in the art world at this moment directly impacts art history as a whole. Not only are you seeing the newest breakthroughs, but you're also seeing how everything else has led to this moment. The best part? This class changes literally every year.