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Academic Program Requirements for the Art Major

Student sketching a barn during a Painting field trip.

What art teaches us

By strengthening a wide range art-based skills, both traditional and contemporary, students gain recognition and an understanding of the complexities of object- and image-making. Students become fluent while working with the continual rearrangement of design elements. Through art courses, students become well-versed in a variety of materials and techniques and develop individual processes.

Through their studies, students will be able to engage, and more fully understand, the principles and precepts that guide others while producing their own works of art. This visual intelligence will lead to an enhanced practice of solving problems that arise in the making of their own works. Students will then be better able to place their work, and the works of others, into a larger community context. In turn, this will reinforce the communicative power and purpose of making art. With a more nuanced, measured, and interpretive understanding of art forms, students will mature into better critics and practitioners, whether in the fine arts or applied fields.

Ultimately, students will make art that is intellectually honest, personal, and useful as a means of better understanding their lives and experiences. Their work will present these ideas in cogent, original, and convincing ways.