ARTH 100 - Art Appreciation [GEKA]

Visual culture is an important means of expression and communication in the contemporary world. From advertisements to traffic signs, from television shows to food packaging, visual communication is used today to inform, manipulate and record social, political and economic values of our society. The visual culture of today is an extension and evolution of the visual culture of the past. Art is a primary means by which people throughout the world have been recording and relating their cultural values, philosophies, social identities and historical development. Art appreciation is the skill by which one can read, understand and enjoy these works of art. Through an understanding of important works of art, and the great artists who produced them, this course will be of value in the critical and intellectual understanding of the evolution of our history.

A student who successfully completes this course will learn how aesthetics, history, the visual vocabulary of art, the relationship between content and form and the dynamics of the visual language are the necessary means by which we increase our knowledge and awareness of ourselves, our culture and the world in which we live. Through the examination of important works of art, students will learn the essential descriptive vocabularies of the visual arts, how formal properties (style) shape and inform the content of a given work of art. Students will develop an ability to decode iconographic symbols and stylistic conventions that are culturally and historically specific, as well as symbols and intentions specific to particular artists and their work.

Additional Information:

Keywords: art , history , Knowledge of the Disciplines - Arts (GEKA)  
Equivalent Courses: ART100
Updates: Course Rotation added 9/2014

Winter 2025 Course Sections

Fall 2024 Course Sections