The National CollegeHistory and Theory for the Art and Design Student
John Turpin
The principal function of the Faculty is the provision of lectures and seminars for the five design degrees and the fine art degree with its four sub-divisions. It forms twenty per cent of the time allocation and marks of those degrees. This work culminates in the final year thesis which is an essential and integral part of all art and design undergraduate degrees at the College. The Joint honours degree of history of art and a studio subject (50-50) has a more weighty thesis element. As a distinct operation, the Faculty also supplies the art and design history teaching for future art and design teachers in schools. At postgraduate level the Faculty provides supervision for Masters and Doctors research degrees, as well as running a two year taught Masters course in the History of Design and the Applied Arts.
The aim of the NCAD in the fine art and design degrees it offers is primarily to produce artists and designers in the professional sense. However, it is also to provide an education through art and design which can be seen as comparable to that of arts faculties of the universities. Such a broad visual education with its theoretical elements can be a foundation for a variety of careers involving creativity in the visual sphere such as art administration.
The role of historical and theoretical studies in relation to the overall aims of the College degrees is to develop a self-critical attitude in the students in relation to the cultural, and especially visual, context in which they aim to work. It is to provide them with an understanding of some of the main developments in the history of art (mainly of the twentieth century) and their intellectual foundations. In first year Core Studies there is a wide-ranging thematic course in the history of art and design providing an historical and theoretical foundation for later specialisation.
The scholarly study of the history and criticism of art has changed greatly in the past twenty-five years towards a more socially and conceptually based discipline, rather than a mainly biographical and aesthetic one. This is reflected in the Faculty's teaching. The ideas and social realities which underpin and inform specific manifestations of visual culture are analysed and articulated. The aim is less to provide comprehensive factual accounts of modernism, and more to stimulate independent critical thinking through a disciplined method of analysis over an appropriate range of historical and theoretical material.
Through their periodic essays all students have an opportunity to focus on the areas of intellectual enquiry of greatest interest to them. Such individual studies can assist students as they seek to define their own position as artists or designers and in forming a critical perspective. The written work, and especially the thesis, gives students practice in the acquisition of a professional level of writing which is of value in many careers.
The Faculty's teaching, specifically for the fine art degree, is planned to prepare students to operate in the world of contemporary art practice. This is not only a matter of introducing them to some of the main developments in the history of art, mainly of the twentieth century, but also of engaging with current theoretical debates which surround art practice. Increasingly, fine art in its diverse forms has become enmeshed in supportive networks of theory. Students need to be made aware of this complexity before positioning themselves in the highly contested territory of contemporary art. The diversity of individual artistic practice among students in third and fourth years is the reality in the studio. The Faculty addresses this through its varied programme, with written work, and above all in the thesis, where the students have the opportunity to go into depth with a subject of their choice, researched and written under tutorial guidance. Fine art students (unlike design students) are not taught by the Faculty in separate medium-based groups, but in mixed groups. Contemporary fine art practice stresses concepts first. Whatever their fine art specialisation, students are taught together.
In the case of the five design degrees (within four studio departments), the Faculty provides a broad introduction in the history design across a range of degree specialisations. In particular it provides four specialist seminar streams through the academic year in visual communications; ceramics, glass and metals; fashion and textiles; and in industrial design. While the common lecture series in years two and three provides a broad survey of the history of design and the applied arts, mainly since the Industrial Revolution, the issues of contemporary design practice are also of vital importance particularly in the smaller seminar groups. The history and related issues bearing on the specific studio degree specialities are explored for the benefit of students who may seek to establish their practice in a particular context. Design history and theory is a growing area of contemporary thought and research, also reflected in the two-year postgraduate MA course offered in Design History and the Applied Arts.
All the fine art and design students, as part of their intellectual development, share a programme of complementary studies subjects from which they can choose, such as media studies, gender studies, film studies and cultural studies. These explore the contemporary intellectual context with special reference to visual manifestations. These subjects can contribute to the final choice of thesis topic for degree. Business studies relating to commercial careers in design is also provided.
The Faculty does not seek to provide a wholly autonomous separate subject in the history of art and design (even of the Modernist Movement), as would be normal in a typical university single honours degree in art history. Only in the Joint Honours degree is there an autonomous course in the history of Irish art, but that too has a formative relationship to students as contemporary Irish artists and designers. Rather, the Faculty aims to help in shaping the intellectual development of the student artist or designer. The aim is to alert the students to the main issues of the day and the Modernist inheritance.
The Faculty's historical and theoretical teaching, especially in the thesis work, ensures a strong intellectual dimension to all the specialist fine art and design degrees offered by the College. This has been a particular strength of the NCAD degrees over the past quarter century of the Faculty's existence. The essays in Thought Lines, based on the best theses, are evidence of this. The thesis topic is the student's own and forms an integral part of the student's intellectual aspirations. It can relate directly to artists and designers of close relevance to a student's own studio work, or to issues germane to the student's practice, or follow a more oblique relationship. The thesis will involve research and scholarship, often of a high standard and therefore worthy of publication in Thought Lines. This research and writing can open up awareness of career development. After the degree examination the student's own hard-bound thesis volume is lasting testimony to their intellectual achievement.
I would like to thank all the students who contributed to Thought Lines 6. I would also like to thank Dr Mia Lerm Hayes for editing the publication, and Bill Bolger for supervising design and production. Finally I would like to thank the College for its financial support.
