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Lascaux Cave painting, Wikimedia Commons

Art History

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School of Humanities and Sciences

 Think critically about the visual arts and visual culture and focus on the meaning of images, architecture, and media, and their historical development, roles in society, and relationships to disciplines such as literature, music, political science, religion, and philosophy. 

What You'll Study

 Art History teaches students to analyze and interpret a wide variety of visual and material objects—from sacred icons and temples to photographs, monuments, movies, and viral images. We begin from the premise that visual literacy and analytical skills are not innate, but developed through careful training and sustained practice. Our scope spans from antiquity to the present, drawing on the rich and complex artistic traditions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Europe. 

Art History, at its core, is an interpretive enterprise—one that insists a painting or a building or a film is not just an object, but a message embedded in time. Art History, then, aims at situating works of art within their original contexts of creation and reception, emphasizing their dual status as both historical documents and acts of social communication. At the same time, Art History explores how artworks transcend their immediate moment, accruing new and varied meanings across different historical periods, including our own. In this way, the discipline is uniquely positioned to equip students from a broad range of fields—especially in light of the visual turn that has reshaped the humanities and sciences in recent years, as disciplines across the academic spectrum increasingly engage with artistic forms and modes of communication. 

Power exists in and through representation. Art and architecture can both be deeply entangled in producing and sustaining hierarchies as well as challenge authority. Art history uses many different approaches, some of which confront and critically address how these systems of power operate. This variety of methodologies is represented in the courses offered by the Department. 

Degrees Offered 

  • BA
  • Minor
  • Honors

More Information

Learn more about Art History in the Stanford Bulletin

Exploratory Courses

For students wanting to explore the major, we suggest the one-digit core and survey courses: 

ARTHIST 1A 

Experiencing Early Global Art and Architecture 

ARTHIST 1B 

How to Look at Art and Why: An Introduction to the History of Western Painting 

ARTHIST 149

Introduction to Islamic Art

ARTHIST 2 

Asian Arts and Cultures  

ARTHIST 5 

Art and Power