History of Art - MA (Hons)

You will take History of Art combined with courses from two other subject areas (such as Architectural History, Anthropology or Psychology) in your first two years, then choose from around 30 option courses within History of Art in years 3 and 4. The breadth of courses on offer at Edinburgh is unrivalled: you may choose to study Pictish stones, Medieval manuscripts, Chinese scrolls, Japanese Buddhist relics, Renaissance altarpieces, Scottish Enlightenment portraits and artefacts of eighteenth-century material culture, Pre-Raphaelite and French Impressionist paintings, problems in Modernist painting and sculpture, Landscape art and radical eco-aesthetics, Feminist art and activism, as well as a range of Contemporary art practices. In year 3 you will combine specialist option courses with project work focusing in detail on your choice of either art objects, exhibitions, or texts of art theory, so that you develop core skills in writing and researching art history. You may also choose a work placement in a local museum, gallery, or school. In your final year you will take more specialist option courses and will devise and write an original, independently researched dissertation which is the culmination of your studies.

This degree programme is for you if you are interested in art and visual culture and the histories and ideas that they embody. You do not need to have studied Art History before but you will be curious to learn about new ideas, places and times that will challenge the way you see the world.