History of Art and Architecture

Program Overview

The History of Art and Architecture program at Trinity College Dublin explores the visual arts and architecture, developing students' analytical, critical, and communication skills. Through coursework, examinations, and a research project, students specialize in areas of interest, preparing them for careers in academia, museums, galleries, and other art-related fields. The program emphasizes direct engagement with artworks and buildings, utilizing Dublin's rich cultural heritage as a learning resource.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

History of Art and Architecture is the study of images, objects, and buildings. It explores why works of art look the way they do and seeks to discover what they say about the societies that created them. It develops skills in visual analysis, critical assessment, and communication.

Outline:

First and second years

In first year, students take modules that provide an introduction to various aspects of art and architecture, and to the practice of art history. These examine the critical analysis of artworks and structures in various mediums, the importance of iconography, and the different technical methods used by artists and architects from ancient Greece to the present day. In the first year the concentration is principally on Western art, in second year students deepen their theoretical understanding, with modules on the methodologies of art history and the display of art. This is further developed in the second year when students may also participate in a work placements and study trips for credit and take more focused modules in areas such as cultural intersections in art history, the Arts of Japan and Irish art.

Third and fourth years

In third and fourth years students have the opportunity to specialise in areas that are particular interest to them. In third year they can choose from a range of options that may include:

• Antiquity and Innovation in Early Medieval Art.
• Painting and Sculpture in the Italian Renaissance.
• Architecture in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.
• The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.
• Art in France 1850-1900.
• Global Post-Modern and Contemporary Art.
These courses comprise a mixture of lectures and small group seminars. In their final year students select up to two topics dealing with the art-historical issues at a more specialised level. Where possible, these include the opportunity to study primary sources and particular emphasis is placed on personal observation and interpretation of original works of art and architecture. Examples of special subject topics include:
• Art and Architecture in Late Medieval Ireland;
• Architecture beyond the Canon,;
• Early Modern Portraiture;
• Gender, Art and Identity;
• Painting in Ireland and Britain c1800-1900;
• and Art, Design and Nature 1930's to the present.

Assessment:

Careers:

In recent years graduates have been employed as lecturers, curators, editors, and writers in universities, galleries, museums, publishing houses and art salesrooms in Ireland and abroad. These include the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Universities of Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and Saint Andrews, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Irish Architectural Archive, and University College Dublin. Graduates have also worked in a broad range of administrative, commercial, and media-based employment and have commented on the usefulness of visual literacy in the field of marketing. public relations, and journalism.

Other:

• Students do not need any previous knowledge of art history or any practical skill in art to take this course.
• Direct experience of objects, artworks, and buildings is fundamental to the discipline and Dublin’s impressive collections of paintings and sculpture, together with its rich architectural heritage provides an ideal basis for study.
• The proximity of Trinity to the city’s many museums and galleries renders site visits a central and distinctive feature of the undergraduate programme, and particular emphasis is placed on student engagement with the national collections.
• The Douglas Hyde Gallery, one of Ireland’s leading contemporary art galleries, is situated at Trinity.
• The Trinity campus is famous for having some of Ireland’s most outstanding buildings, from the eighteenth century up to the present.
• The university also has a major collection of manuscripts, paintings and sculpture, and a student committee assists the curator in managing this collection.