The Art and Art History Department provides a diverse, collaborative, and integrated curriculum in studio art, art history, and art theory. Members share a common philosophy that studying the making, analysis, and history of art are inseparable endeavors.
In an increasingly visually complex world, we need to understand how the visual aspects of our world affect our actions, our interactions, and our understanding.
The departments central goal is to expose students to creative and intellectual activities that will help them become thoughtful producers and consumers of visual media. In our department, students and faculty work through visual problems, study past and present visual cultures, and join in art production in order to connect concepts and ideas to analysis and practice. Our offerings appeal equally to the intellect and the senses, and our curriculum is designed to be accessible to students of all interest levels.
One goal of the art major is to produce professionals in both studio practice and art scholarship. In a broader context, we also prepare students for other careers in the arts, as well as a wide range of professional and personal activities for which visual literacy is a central component of both production and interpretation. Finally, we instill appreciation in those for whom art is simply a pleasurable and meaningful component of a full life. By exploring the visual world at St. Mary's College of Maryland, students can shape that world throughout their lives.
