Primary Degrees

Course Description

While courses in Visual Culture represent twenty percent in all BA and BDes Degree courses in fine art and design, the BA Joint Course is fifty percent Visual Culture with fifty percent in either Fine Art or in Design.

The BA Degree Course in Art and Design Education includes courses in History and Appreciation of Art and Design which represent ten percent of the total degree.

The Faculty also runs a course in History of Art and Design Teaching Methodology for the Higher Diploma in Art and Design Education course.

Courses are provided at undergraduate level in the History of Art and Design, together with a variety of Complementary Studies subjects: film, media, sociology, aesthetics, gender studies and business studies. These aim to support, stimulate, complement and contrast with the student's major discipline.

Although the broad aims are constant, the content and approach of history of art and design teaching vary according to the studio courses to which they relate.

For First Year (Core), selected themes arising from the history of art and design in Europe and North America are provided.

For Fine Art students the art history courses seek to investigate the critical perspectives that inform contemporary practice and to initiate critical debate on aspects of fine art from the late nineteenth century to the present.

For students in all design specialisms there is a common series of lectures on art and design since the Renaissance and greater detail on the 19th and 20th centuries. There are also more specialised design history seminars, relating to the design specialisms taught in the College: craft, fashion, industrial design, textiles and visual communication.

In all courses there are regular lectures, seminars and visits to galleries and other sites. Lectures by visiting speakers are an important part of the programme.

In their final year Design and Fine Art students research and write a thesis, which forms twenty percent of their degree.

For the BA in Art & Design Education there is a variety of courses in history of art and design over the four years which ranges from early Irish art to art of the present day.

For the Higher Diploma in Art and Design Education, the art history methods course provides students with the principles and research tools for the teaching of art history in schools.

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