How to Cram for Intro to Art History 1

The Art History Myth

And then many students register for an art history class with an inaccurate idea of what the subject entails. They believe it'south a course for looking at pretty pictures all day and they'll be able to skate right through information technology. However, this is not the case. Art history covers far more than than looking at pictures, and requires exceptional report skills if the goal is an "A" alphabetic character grade. In my experience equally an art history student, I noticed three distinct types of students in my classes:

• The fine art history major who needs and wants to report the bailiwick.
• The art major who is required to take a certain amount of art history courses.
• And, the other random majors who needed an elective and idea that art history would be fun and easy.

Whatsoever their area of report, many students are completely shocked when they receive those outset test scores. Those C'south, D's, and F's are always a quick slap in the face to those students who callously believed art history to be a fluff class. Sadly, even many students majoring in the field of study struggle for loftier marks on exams because while they may be passionate most the discipline matter, they only don't know how to properly prepare for an exam.

Even by the time I was taking the upper level courses, many of my boyfriend students yet hadn't adopted good studying practices. Semester after semester they approached studying for exams in the aforementioned way; scrambling to memorize the content last minute while guzzling venti latté's at Starbucks in the student union until two or three o'clock in the morning.

If you lot are currently taking an fine art history form, or planning on it, you'll probably hear students and fifty-fifty teacher's say, "Memorization is the key." This is true to a indicate. You volition need to memorize titles, creative person names, and dates, at to the lowest degree, but memorization tends to exist temporary knowledge. Sitting down with a stack of flash cards and memorizing what's on them may exist the quicker mode to pass the exam, only it is an excruciatingly Ho-hum way to study, and you lot'll forget everything past the next mean solar day.

My methods of studying take a keen deal more time. These are not methods for people who want to know how to laissez passer an art history exam without putting in whatever work. My written report strategies are meant for the pupil - whether an art history major or a student of some other field - who wants to go an A and doesn't mind working diligently to get there.

My methods are also tried and true. I graduated magna cum laude with a degree in art history, and with the highest GPA of all the art history majors graduating with me. Those friends of mine who pulled the late nighters with the wink cards did non graduate with honors.

So, my hope is, if y'all're willing to work for the form, I volition give you the strategy that will get it for you. In the long run, your life will actually be easier come exam time because you won't need to cram for the test; you'll already know the answers.

Art History Trivia

Some General Study Tips

To begin, I'd like to introduce some full general good study habits:

1. Don't wait until right earlier the examination to report.

   I've already alluded to this stride, and while information technology seems most obvious, information technology is surprising how many people ignore this simple precept. Time and time over again students nourish grade and think their job is done for the day.

   Wrong!

   At that place is a reason instructors create a syllabus outlining the schedule for the duration of the class. Your class syllabi is not something you should toss into the garbage on your fashion out of the classroom on the showtime day. No, that certificate needs to become the basis of outlining your study schedule for the semester.

   Staying on top of your syllabus enables yous to conceptualize the upcoming topics. The all-time practice is to prepare for the lecture by reading the respective literature earlier the topic is covered. This fashion, the lecture actually reinforces information y'all've already gained and aids in improve retention.

2. Take notes in class

   Another obvious tip ignored past too many students. Taking notes in lecture classes is optimal for keeping i's mind engaged. Even if the instructor is covering details seemingly irrelevant to the matter at hand, take notes. It keeps you focused, and the act of writing also helps with retaining noesis.

   Yeah, I'k not only recommending notes, but I'yard suggesting yous actually write them as opposed to typing them. For those of u.s.a. brought upward with computers, our typing skills are by and large enough adept for united states of america to type and transcribe what a professor is maxim without actually giving information technology any attention. Just, that as well makes information technology all too easy to type what you hear without actually listening.

   And of form, there are the many distractions computers bring with them: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, e-mail, Amazon, etc. While you're busy checking your status on Facebook, your instructor likely simply gave the class a crucial bit of information meaning the difference between getting an A on the essay portion of the test and not getting credit at all. If, for whatever reason, y'all withal choose to use a computer in class, don't accept Facebook or any of the other distracting sites open in another tab. Those pesky notifications telling you something new has occurred are far also tempting to ignore, and before y'all know it you're checking your updates more than taking notes.

3. Written report in a place Non comfortable.

   The optimal location for studying, especially if you demand to devote a good clamper of fourth dimension, is somewhere with no other activity options. The library, a quiet bookstore café, or a coffee house make for great places to study. The surroundings is generally subdued, repose, and they offer something to do while taking a study interruption without causing lark.

   About people take difficulty studying at home because at that place are too many other things to practise. My apartment was never cleaner than when my college roommate had an consignment due or a test coming upward. Studying at dwelling house makes it likewise easy to distract yourself with other important things that need to be done.

4. Heed to instrumental music while studying.

   Nearly of us have heard listening to classical music is best for while studying, but what if you don't like classical music? I besides highly recommend listening to something to block out the noise of your surroundings, and I find that music helps focus the mind and earlier you know it you've spent hours studying without even realizing time has passed. But, nosotros don't all dig Beethoven and Mozart as background noise (personally I exercise, but I can understand this isn't for anybody'south sense of taste). If you're not in to classical tunes, try listening to film scores. If you enjoy an edgier audio to your music, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Ynwei Malmsteen, Ethan Brosch, and many other guitarists have solo albums of purely instrumental compositions. Adopt a mix? Try Apocalyptica, 2 Cellos, or David Garrett.

5. Study in cycles of 20 to forty minutes with 5 to ten minute burglary between.

   A four hour report session with no breaks is a wearisome and bluntly daunting job. If this is your idea of what studying entails, it's no wonder you avoid it. Dividing the chore into smaller, more than manageable chunks with five to ten minute breaks to wait forward to will make that overall iv hour menses a much more than enjoyable feel.

   When you lot take a pause, practise something non-job oriented. This is when you bank check Facebook or the other social media sites, maybe you go a snack or another cup of coffee, play candy crush on your iPhone, etc. But, don't let your breaks distract yous from returning to the task at hand. When break time is over, close out of whatever game or social media yous're using and get dorsum to business.

6. Don't ever report lonely.

   Partnering with another fellow member of your class has many advantages. First, if you missed a class or dozed off during a lecture, you tin can compare notes and make sure you're caught up. 2d, the active engagement of quizzing each other is less monotonous than reading chapter upon chapter in the text or using flash cards. Finally, if you become along with your written report partner(s) a lot of times these sessions experience more like hanging out, thus making studying far more entertaining.

To sum it upwards, these aren't all technically study tips, simply more of an bookish modus operandi. It's the same reasoning behind the idea that cleaning as y'all cook results in less kitchen mess subsequently the meal. Work a petty fleck conscientiously throughout the semester and you'll exist sleeping like a babe the dark before the exam while the rest of your class burns themselves out and most overdoses on caffeine.

Art History Study Tips

Now, for the art history specific tips.

1. Flash cards.

   If I've fabricated it seem so far as if flash cards are boring and monotonous, I'm sorry. I'm pitiful because, equally tiresome and monotonous equally they can be, they're notwithstanding the number one all-time study tool for art history. Remember, I did say that memorization does play a certain role up to a bespeak, and flash cards are optimal for drilling the pertinent data - name, appointment, championship, style, location, etc. - into your head.

   At that place is, of grade, the old school way of making flash cards. Note cards with a printout of the image on one side and the corresponding details on the reverse side. Or, you lot can utilize Keynote, or Power Indicate if yous accept a Windows machine, to create a digital version of flash cards. On ane slide you lot bear witness the image, most of which tin be found on Google Images or ARTstor, and enter the details on the next slide.

   There are also different variations of online wink card programs. I personally never had any success with these and found them to be more of a waste product of time than helpful, only if this is more than to your liking you can discover enough by searching for "wink carte du jour maker" on Google.

2. Create a chief listing.

   It may be wiser to create this before you create the wink cards, but either mode y'all'll demand this to study. For my own studying purposes, I always used Numbers (Excel for the Microsoft users out there), and I fabricated lists for Date, Title, Artist, Fashion, Medium, Location, and Period. Then I would enter each artwork covered in the session in appointment order from oldest to newest.

   However, there are many ways to organize your lists. Depending on how y'all're being tested, or what information you're being tested on, yous may want to grouping by creative person, by catamenia, by style, by medium, or by location. Creating this list is actually up to your preferred mode of arranging information.

   As you get together your listing, exit room for notes. Yous will use this listing in conjunction with your wink cards or Keynote/Power Signal file to annotate relative information to the images yous are reviewing.

3. Expand your learning outside the classroom.

   Don't stick to reviewing only your class notes. Look upwardly biographical information about each artist on the exam. It is likely more than noesis near the artist will help you lot better understand their choices of subject matter, medium, and/or style. Contextual information will without a doubt help cement the where and the when. For example, knowing Leonardo Da Vinci, an Italian past birth, finished his career and life in France, may help y'all remember that La Joconde is in the Louvre, not Italia.

   There is plenty of contextual information available for many of the famous works in the history of fine art. Primary sources are best, but in that location are numerous secondary sources out there. So before the examination, check out supplementary materials from the library or even use Google to find online articles about the cloth you're studying.

   The fox to truly being able to recognize and remember facts nigh artworks is to actually know the information. Learning as much equally y'all tin can well-nigh the artist, the time period, the individual works themselves volition only assist y'all retain the information more permanently. Follow these tips, and yous'll walk in to every test and confidently pass information technology with ease.

An Example of A Master Listing of Works to exist Studied

Appointment	Title	Artist	Medium	Style
1888	The Night Café	Vincent Van Gogh	Oil on Canvas	Post-Impressionism
1889	Landscape with Wheat Sheaves and Rising Moon	Vincent Van Gogh	Oil on Sheet	Post-Impressionism
1889	Starry Nighttime	Vincent Van Gogh	Oil on Sail	Postal service-Impressionism

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Read More From Owlcation

Stack of supplementary art history reading materials.

Photo by RJBarnes

Some Helpful Reference Materials

Some very helpful materials to supplement learning outside the classroom are:

• For fine art theory:
  • Meaning in the Visual Arts by Erwin Panofsky, ISBN 978-0226645513
  • The Methodologies of Art: An Introduction past Laurie Schneider Adams, ISBN 978-0-8133-4450-8
  • Ways of Seeing by John Berger, ISBN 0-14-013515-4
• For Classical (and Renaissance) fine art: Who's Who in Classical Mythology past Adrian Room, ISBN 0-517-22256-half dozen
• For Modern fine art: Theories of Modern Art by Herschel B. Chipp, ISBN 978-0-520-05256-7
• For symbolism in Western Christian fine art: Signs & Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson, ISBN 978-0-nineteen-501432-7
• Other:
  • The Cambridge Introduction to Art: Looking At Pictures by Susan Woodford, ISBN 0-521-28647-6
  • The Fine art of Writing virtually Art by Suzanne Hudson and Nancy Noonan-Morrissey, ISBN 0-15-506154-2
  • Art History'south History by Vernon Hyde Small, ISBN 0-13-085133-7

Don't forget to bank check out biographies of artists and exhibition catalogues for fifty-fifty more than in depth supplementary materials.

Some helpful online resource

• Art Project - Google Cultural Institute
  The Google Cultural Plant brings together millions of artifacts from multiple partners, with the stories that bring them to life, in a virtual museum.
• Artstor
  The Artstor Digital Library - digital collections of artworks from around the globe.
• JSTOR
  Journals, primary sources, and at present BOOKS

Just for good measure, this is my diploma showing I graduated with honors and a degree in art history.

Photograph by RJBarnes

In Decision

Fine art history is a fascinating subject, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the slightest involvement in art. However, it is non an easy class, and even those of usa who major in the field struggle to make the course. I wish I'd had someone to outline for me the best way to approach studying and learning the textile. Instead, I had to learn the hard way. For those of y'all who find yourself grappling with the fabric, I hope this article helps you get the grades y'all deserve.

Alexia on October 21, 2019:

Great tips! Thank you lot for sharing. you are 100% right nearly study earlier the course, and write notes during the class.

CANDICE on January xviii, 2018:

Your overview with written report skills is an academic culture of its ain! Great thought to aid students!

I'm 69 with a degree in art history , French and biology- five years to achieve plus a junior yr in France and a summer in Florence, Italy.

Question for all:

I like the construct for learning each work of art! I did this for myself in learning works of art for myself. I bought postcards of fine art works everywhere I went-about thousand. I indulged myself in art in 1968,69,71,76 meaning I kept on studying!

Once again, preparing myself for medical school, I worked in a hospital to make sure I wanted to be a doctor. Without realizing I liked children, I tutored a doctor's child in math. I wanted to be bang-up and help kids. So, I did 3 masters degrees over 8 years in special ed.,counseling psychology and writing curriculum. I never was layed off. I was moved around in grades g-ix over several years. The all-time part of this story is that posters of art works laid effectually in the library and were rarely used.

So, I started teaching art history to kids of all ages. I introduced a painting or sculpture and designed a project for my students every week. I taught for 29 years. I was in a French Immersion school for 13 of those years.

QUESTION: People who recall they are good or cracking art historians utilize your model. It'due south the but subject I lknow with such a memory impact. As far as teaching goes, there is no like shooting fish in a barrel way to be an art historian. Having enough courses to break down the memory load is the only solution I see. Over four years if possible, fine art history majors could take 2 -3classes per term. That is heavy. They don't all accept to be in a sequence. I recall doing prehistoric fine art aligned with the emerging era of modern art could teach some invaluable understandings. Just an example. I got all deserved A's because I worked hard and loved art! I am a smashing writing teacher through comments through the years. I liked to coach. Neither producing art myself or writing interested me to this day.

What skills did your greatest colleages around the world possess that may have been different but useful? The style of learning and didactics to a examination gets former fast. Studying foreign languages is very complex, but without a deep understanding of grammer and syntax and vocabulary growth,

those older than second course would struggle without a tutor and adults without instructin carry traverlers' dictionaries for life.

I'm going to comtinue your manufactures. This is a great site! I feel skilful renewing my memory of what I love!

Spiral THIS on Dec 07, 2017:

I Hate THIS! THIS IS USELESS AND It GAVE ME NO Aid! Screw THIS!

Alan on May 21, 2017:

I institute this days later on finishing the class. My terminal ditch effort for a B came upwardly short. I ended up with a 78%. Really tough course. Studying for the material was really difficult. I had to know everything in lecture and everything in book plus research outside of both if study guide had things left out of both. Information technology was an extrodinarily tough. I got overwhelmed. But I stuck with it and after doing well on mid term newspaper, quizzes and extra credit plus getting attendance points I volition take the C. I got one B, four Cs and a D, which was taken out as lowest score is taken out, on the exams. Simply was to have gotten a B would have been an A on the final and I got a 71%. Just I tried my hardest. The studying method might accept been a niggling off. Just also I might have just had it too tough. I could spend hours on this. But consider I took two other classes. And was lost with following teacher on notes sometimes I did well.

Lindsey on February 28, 2017:

Go Knights!

Thank you for the great study tips, I'll use them for my fine art history midterm! :)

Rita Barnes (writer) from Florida on December 01, 2016:

Michele, I'm so happy to hear this article was helpful, and congratulations on that "A" in history of photography!! You got this!

MiWilber on December 01, 2016:

@nmu.edu

Rita,

Thank you for all of this bully data. I am a photography major at NMU and I am freaking out near taking the iii Art History classes I need for my degree. Yes, after taking History of Photography and passing with every bit "A" I know information technology takes hard work and dedication. I'thousand in my early on 50'southward and feel overwhelmed at times with all of this studying. I just don't want my GPA to exist affected so I need the grades!

Cheers again!

Michele

Rita Barnes (author) from Florida on February 10, 2015:

@ weirdalex

I hope this does help you get through your form. Information technology was many classes and a lot of hours studying before I figured out the best way to arroyo the information. Most chiefly though, I hope what you larn in your form inspires you lot to proceed drawing and creating art!

Alana on February 09, 2015:

very helpful

thanks

weirdalex on Jan 10, 2015:

Thanks and then much for posting this! I retrieve this is going to help me a lot in my grade. I really similar the idea of creating a table for artists and data about them. I love creating fine art, and so I idea I'd love art history, just I found the class (which I'm currently taking for a GE requirement) to be a lot harder and less interesting than I thought. I'm not into history, simply I honey drawing and such. I think this is going to help a lot, and I think I'll have a lot more than fun studying the bailiwick now. :)

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Source: https://owlcation.com/academia/How-to-Study-for-an-Art-History-Exam-and-Get-an-A

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