Return to: Programs A-Z

Degree Requirements

All students accepted into the program must take the M.A. proficiency examination in the history of art during the first semester of their residence. The examination consists of the identification and discussion of certain major movements from Western art history from antiquity to the present. Before the end of the second semester of study each student is expected to select an area of concentration. All art history majors are required to pass a reading proficiency test in a foreign language: German, French, Spanish, Italian, or by permission of the area, some other language.

The M.A. degree program in art history allows the graduate student an opportunity to concentrate the program of study in any of four core areas:

• Ancient and medieval art and architecture
• Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture
• 18th- and 19th-century European art and architecture
• 20th-century and contemporary art and architecture.

Students are required to take at least one course in each of the four areas. Students must also take ARTH 501 - Methodologies in Art History  in their first academic year.