Last year we had a student come to Cicero in order to take a few courses that would flesh out her junior and senior year. Beatrice (as we’ll call her) had been seriously disrupted by the pandemic during her first year of high school, and hadn’t ever really gotten back on track with traditional school. She was feeling unmotivated and discouraged by traditional academics. As we explored some potential courses with her, we suggested art history. She very sensibly responded, “why study art history?”
Ah, Beatrice, great question. So, we sat down with one of our art history teachers, Rosie May, who used to work with us at Context Travel, to pose the question to her: Why should a high school student study art history? Rosie had some great thoughts.
Art History is Material History
In Art History we study the art and architecture of cultures around the world and across time. “It’s a history class taught through material artifacts, or ‘history with pictures’, if you like,” shared Rosie. “By looking closely at a work of art, students learn about the culture in which it was produced. If you enjoy history but are more drawn to looking at it through the lens of people’s beliefs, values, customs, art, and everyday lives (i.e. cultural history), then art history is the class for you.
Art history is also all about context. By situating paintings, sculpture, architecture and other art forms into a culture, we learn how to see objects in their context and think deeply about how culture and people have developed over time.
Art History Develops Critical Thinking
Rosie believes that art history is uniquely equipped to develop critical thinking, communication, and observation skills. “Art history trains students to look closely and critically at objects,” she shares. And, it forces students to ask questions such as what historical or cultural forces are at work in an object, and how does it communicate about the values of a time and place.
These kinds of questions, in Rosie’s experience, help build a general competence in critical thinking.
Rosie has a lot of experience teaching art history on the university and college level, and notes that in her view—and there’s some data to support this—because it hones analytical ability and the skill of articulating an argument, studying art history has been found to be helpful for various careers, even those outside art, notably medicine and law.
Art History Builds Empathy and Understanding
We live in a global society. With its outward focus, art history forces students to learn about other countries and cultures, which, in turn, has been shown to help them develop empathy and tolerance. “We don’t just look at the iconic work of Western culture in art history. Instead, we take a global perspective and spend as much time looking at Africa, pre-Columbian America, and Asian arts, which help us understand global trade routes, migration of people, and the interconnectedness of the globe—and, it’s opposite in truly isolated cultures—over millennia.”
Why Study Art History
Which brings us back to Beatrice who took up our idea and asked Rosie to develop a one-semester introduction to art history. It went swimmingly. Beatrice dug in, found traction, and rediscovered what she loved about school and learning. By the end of the semester she wanted to continue. Fast forward 18 months and Beatrice is now weeks away from her high school graduation and has done two years’ of college-level work in art history. She probably won’t major in it at college; she is really turned on by biology and marine science. But, studying art history helped Beatrice rediscover her sense of wonder and develop her ability as a critical thinker. It’s part of her success story as a student.
Given all this, it’s hard to understand why more high schoolers don’t study art history. One reason may be with high school itself, which is often structured to limit a student’s ability to explore. Art history (like anthropology) is often filed into a category of ‘things I’ll get to study once I get to college.’ But, that makes no sense. Like anthropology, art history is central to understanding human culture. Or, the idea that “we are what we make.”
Luckily, at Cicero we have no limits on what a student can pursue. And we’re excited to see more take up art history!
