Introduction to Art
ART 140 enrolls approximately 100–144 students each semester and includes a 50-minute faculty-led lecture and a weekly, TA-led studio lasting one hour and 50 minutes. Studio activities build on lecture topics through artmaking, connecting ideas about art with students’ experiences and social concerns. The course includes museum visits and an essay on an artwork of each student’s choice. Students learn to research artworks, support their interpretations with evidence, and cite sources using APA 7.
Lecture
The weekly 50-minute lecture introduces a theme through artworks from different places and historical periods. Students look closely at works and consider how the artists’ experiences and circumstances shaped their ideas. During the lecture, students respond to two reflective exit-slip questions and briefly discuss their thoughts with a nearby classmate. Their responses help them prepare ideas for the weekly studio.
Weekly Studio Activities
Each week, students make artwork in response to a different lecture topic. Studio assignments ask students to connect course ideas with their own experiences and perspectives. Materials and processes vary with the assignment. The utopia activity shown here is one example: students create their own visions of an ideal world after learning how artists from different periods imagined theirs.
From Museum Visit to Art Essay
Students visit the museum in groups of 10-15 to accommodate the large lecture course. Tours are self-guided or led by museum staff or museum education students. For self-guided visits, students receive a worksheet to guide their observations. The visit is the starting point for the art essay: students look at artworks in person, choose a work they want to learn more about, and use their observations and questions to guide further research. Students then develop an interpretation supported by evidence.