Welcome

Art History is the study of images and objects of art in their historical context. In our society, we are so constantly bombarded by images that it is easy to believe we understand them and know what it is we are looking at, yet few people really possess the skills to critically analyze images created during our own lifetimes. How much more complex it is to understand those made by a different culture and in an earlier time.

The Art History programme aims to provide students with the methodological and critical tools necessary to analyze works of art and their role in history – or, as art historian John Shearman phrased it, “to try to understand, in as many ways as possible, how it is that works of art come to look as they do.”

Dr Sharon Gregory
Associate Professor of Art History
St Francis Xavier University
Antigonish, Nova Scotia