The course of studies is designed to involve students in the development of visual literacy and the capacity to shape critical responses towards various manifestations of visual culture, including the pictorial and graphic arts, sculpture, the built environment, the decorative arts, photography, advertising and fashion. Subjects involve historical and critical interpretation of a range of major phases and issues of Australian, European and American art and architecture, with some reference to other relevant traditions. Students are also encouraged to engage in a variety of theoretical approaches applicable to the visual field. Aspects of cultural, political, social and psychoanalytic modes of interpretation and analysis will be raised in order to examine critically the ideology of taste, and the representation of issues of gender, race and class, and questions concerning the relations between art and technology.
The first-year subjects introduce a number of issues and approaches. The first-semester subject focuses on recent and relatively familiar elements of Australian culture in various forms of visual art, architecture, design, photography and related media. In the second semester, the scope alters to encompass international and historical material, considered in relation to the changing character of visual language, and issues such as gender, sexuality, ideology and nationalism. Second and third-year level subjects build on this foundation, enabling students to develop a broadly based study, or to specialise in one or more of the following areas - Australian studies, nineteenth and twentieth-century art, photography, architectural studies, and medieval, Renaissance and baroque art.
Qualified students may enter a fourth honours year and undertake postgraduate studies at diploma, MA and PhD level. There is also an MA by coursework in Australian art. For details of postgraduate subjects, please refer to the Arts graduate handbook for 1997.
It is possible to combine studies in art history and theory with film and television subjects, also taught in the Department of Visual Arts. Students wishing to pursue art history and theory as a minor or major sequence, or film and television studies as a minor or major sequence, should complete the two appropriate subjects at first-year level.
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