Art at Swarthmore

Why is having a keen visual intelligence so crucial to a rewarding life?

Why are museums one of the first places we go to understand the culture and history of a people?
What goes on between the eye, mind and hand during the process of creating a work of art?

Art is a place where history, religion, psychology, politics and culture converge. The Department of Art at Swarthmore offers two avenues of study: studio art and art history. In both, students are introduced to basic skills of visual analysis and expression and to the conceptual frameworks necessary for applying them across disciplines and professions.

The artists and art historians at Swarthmore College consider visual intelligence to be fundamental to a liberal arts education. We believe that the ability to understand works of art—either through analysis or practice—is the key to a richer understanding of the human experience.The study of art is the most direct way of developing a better understanding and appreciation of the cultures and societies of our contemporary world, the visual phenomena found in it—both in nature and in society––and the historical record of human development. Artists have and continue to interpret their experiences and art historians have and continue to interpret the objects made.

Our students learn and create in a department that is made up of a close-knit group of practitioners and historians of art. This unique environment allows the kind of one-on-one relationship to faculty and colleagues that enables our students to gain the skills they need to succeed in their chosen paths. The proximity to Philadelphia and to some of the most important collections of art in the United States, as well as to the lively young artists scene and events such as First Friday, puts Swarthmore in a unique position compared to other liberal arts colleges across the country.

What Art History teaches us:

Much of the knowledge and information produced in the 21st century is communicated through images. Studying art history provides students with the skills to critically analyze and comprehend the visual arguments conveyed in these images. Art history also provides students with the tools necessary to communicate this understanding in coherent written and verbal forms.

Studying art history allows students to engage with the ways in which people in the past and present––patrons, artists, users and
viewers––have created and employed images and to what ends. Indeed, students of art history study works of art that embody the most important ideas and cherished aspirations of cultures through time and across the globe. As a result, they gain a deeper understanding of a global, and multicultural, past and present.

In studying art history students consider how scholars and others have thought about a given work and are asked to find their place in that discussion. In the art history classroom we carefully look at images and analyze them, research the cultures in which they were
produced and make arguments about their meanings and impact.

Send comments to jcianfr1@swarthmore.edu.