University undergraduates attending an Art History seminar with academic Professor Gaby Neher in the Monica Partridge building. Friday November 5th 2021.

Art History and Visual Culture

Answering big questions through art history and visual culture

Here at Nottingham, we view art as a powerful way to explore and express our cultural identities. When you embark on our art history degree, you’ll not only begin to explore visual cultures across periods but you’ll be inspired to question, reflect, and appreciate the power that art represents for the future.

Through our engaging and inspirational modules, we enable you to answer the big questions that arise through art history and visual culture. 

Year on year we adapt our teaching in response to the latest academic research and the changing needs of our students and their future employers. The following modules have been developed for students joining us from 2026.

History of Art: Renaissance to Contemporary


Year one module

 

How does art help us to understand the past? How are works of art shaped by the contexts in which they are made?   

 

How does art shape how we see and understand the world? How does art help us to understand culture, politics and society in the past and present? 

 

 


Revivals: Art in Dialogue with the Past


Year two module

 

Why do so many artworks and buildings reference the past? Can art be innovative if it embraces the past? 


International Study: Art and Place


Year two module

 

Is art best understood in the country of its creation? What do we learn about works of art when we study them firsthand? 

 

 


Ruptures: Art Breaking with the Past


Year three module

 

How have artists imagined the future? Can destruction be creative? Does art need to reject the past to be creative?  

 

 


Exhibition Histories and Practices


Year three module

 

How do exhibitions shape our understanding of art? Are museums political spaces?  

 

 


Find out more, go to the course page >
Open Day June 2022