Art History

The Art History program aims to provide student majors with a strong historical and theoretical understanding of the visual and material environment created by humankind. Art history is founded on the premise that artifacts embody, engage, and shape the beliefs and values of the persons, groups, and societies who made, commissioned, and used them. Students will learn to document and interpret changes in human society by taking works of art and other objects of material culture as their primary sources. They will also critically analyze and interpret written texts to help reconstruct and illuminate the contexts–social, economic, political, philosophical, and religious–in which artifacts were produced, used, and understood.

The study of art history around the world requires knowledge of both objects and languages, including foreign languages and traditional and recent theoretical languages pertaining to cultural production. To this end, courses in the program present students with a wide variety of analytical tools that span established methods of formal, stylistic, historical, and iconographical analysis as well as newer post-structuralist approaches and critical theories of race, gender, and socioeconomic relations. Students also have opportunities to cultivate skills in archaeological and spatial approaches to the discipline, including such digital platforms as GIS.

A major in art history prepares students to pursue a variety of professional goals. Our graduates have built successful careers in higher education, museum work, the art market, architectural history and practice, urban planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, publishing, cultural property law, and other fields.

By the end of the sophomore year, a prospective major should plan to have taken one 100-level introductory course and at least two other courses in art history. For admission to the major, the student must have at least a B average in courses taken in art history and a B average overall.

Both Regular Decision applications and Early Decision applications include the following:

First-Year Application & Personal Essay

Completed Common Application or Apply Coalition, Powered by Scoir, including Wesleyan’s member-specific questions.

Secondary School Report Form & Transcript

Your school counselor should submit a secondary school report along with an official transcript (including courses in progress) and school profile.

Homeschool Supplement (if applicable: only available on Common Application site)

Wesleyan encourages applicants to request that school forms be filed electronically via the Common Application website.

Counselor Recommendation

Your school counselor should submit a written evaluation.

Mid-year Grade Report

Your school counselor should submit your midyear grades when available (end of first semester or second trimester).

Teacher Evaluation Forms

Two academic teacher evaluations are required. You are encouraged to submit one from a humanities or social sciences teacher and one from a math or science teacher.

Wesleyan encourages applicants to request that teacher evaluations be filed electronically via the Common Application website.

Early Decision Agreement

The Early Decision Agreement form is available for download, but it is also provided as part of the Common Application.

(Early Decision applicants ONLY)

Application Fee

$65 Application Fee (non-refundable) or Fee Waiver. We will waive the application fee for all applicants who apply for financial aid. Receiving this fee waiver will not disadvantage an applicant in any way.

Track Your Application Materials

After you have submitted your application you will receive an email with a PIN which will enable you to access WesCheck, your applicant portal, to track your application materials.