On this history of art degree you’ll learn about the most important periods in the history of European art whilst exploring the arts of other cultures, including Ancient Egypt, India, Asia, Africa and the Americas. You’ll engage with artworks from pre-history right through to the present, and with a wide variety of art forms including painting, sculpture, photography and video art, architecture, and installation and performance art. In your first year you’ll establish firm foundations for the study of works of art from a variety of traditions. In your second and third years, you’ll select from a range of optional modules focused on particular periods and addressing specific topics. These currently include the relationship between modern art and gender, the rich culture of the Renaissance, the fascinating world of medieval life, death and ritual, and the spectacular discoveries of ancient Egypt.As well as expanding and deepening your knowledge and understanding of art, you will cultivate key intellectual and professional skills including the visual analysis of images, critical thinking, and confident communication. You’ll have the opportunity to study the world-famous collection of art held in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. That means you will have access to important artworks from Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Americas, and Europe. You will be able to study relevant objects at first-hand, while learning about the processes of collecting such objects in museums. You will also be taught by world-leading experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, who will encourage you to approach works of art from different perspectives.Art History at UEA is a world-leading department. Our main areas of research are the history of art and architecture in Europe and North America, the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America, the archaeology and anthropology of art, and museum studies and cultural heritage. **Course Structure****Year 1**You’ll begin your degree by studying artists, artisans, makers and making. You’ll engage directly with artworks first-hand in order to explore different techniques and visual effects, and deepen your appreciation of their functions and meanings. You’ll be introduced to art history as a discipline before exploring some of the most crucial topics in art history, beginning with the role of portraiture in shaping our identities. You’ll explore the history of galleries and museums, the implications of different kinds of display, and the varied practices of those working in such institutions.**Year 2**You’ll be encouraged to think about the strange and varied ‘lives of objects’ as they move through different contexts and how art history interacts with anthropology and archeology. In your spring semester you’ll be invited to consider how your historical studies relate to contemporary debates about the status of art and the role of galleries and museums in the present. Alongside these lectures you’ll choose from a range of optional modules through which you’ll develop more specialist knowledge of particular problems and periods.**Year 3**In your final year of study you’ll take three optional modules which involve close engagement with advanced topics in art history. Currently our optional modules address topics such as the persona of the artist after 1945, public art and memory, modernism in India, and medieval cartography and world-making. You’ll also write a dissertation on a topic that has most sparked your interest, working closely with a supervisor to design your own research programme.**Disclaimer**Course details are subject to change. You should always confirm the details on the provider's website: **www.uea.ac.uk**