Art Appreciation and Techniques/Course guide/Welcome and outcomes

Welcome
This course is intended for a very broad audience. You may never have studied art formally, and you may not be an artist yourself. On the other hand, you may already be involved in art production. Whatever your background, if you wish to learn about art appreciation and some of the basic techniques of art production, this course is for you. There are only a few images that are not forced to provide meaning, or have to go through the filter of a specific idea.

As explained on the Home Page, you will learn how to develop a five-step system for understanding visual art in all forms, based on:


 * Description
 * Analysis.
 * Context
 * Meaning
 * Judgment

See the Home Page/Course Description for explanations of these steps.

After completing this course, you will be able to interpret works of art based on this five-step system of analysis; explain the processes involved in artistic production, themes, and the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic issues that artists examine in their work; and explain the role and effect of the visual arts in societies, history, and other world cultures.