Course Content and Outcomes Guides (CCOG)

CCOG for ART 102 Winter 2025


Course Number:
ART 102
Course Title:
Understanding the Visual Arts
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Introduces aesthetic, historical, and critical issues of the visual arts. Presents aspects of drawing, painting, sculpture and craft in terms of experiencing, appreciating and understanding their roles in our lives. The series ART 101, ART 102, and ART 103 may be taken in any order. Prerequisites: WR 115, RD 115 and MTH 20 or equivalent placement test scores. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  • Identify practices, formal qualities and styles of art.
  • Analyze artworks in terms of form, technique, or expression.
  • Explain the meanings and cultural significance of a work of art.
  • Apply visual arts vocabulary to discuss works of art, artists, or art history.
  • Interpret visual art in relation to one’s own experience.

Integrative Learning

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.

General education philosophy statement

Through the study of art history, students look closely at works of art and architecture, articulating the way elements of art are interrelated and considering how values and interpretations have changed over time. They critically analyze visual communication, work creatively with art historical data, use evidence to support arguments and assess the stakes of primary and secondary sources. They also analyze the relationships between art and its historical, cultural, social and political contexts. Art history enhances students’ engagement in contemporary global culture through a deeper understanding of history, which helps students recognize connections between the past and present and become more aware of their own vantage points.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

Assessment tools may include:

  • informal and formal responses to discussion questions

  • analysis and evaluation of reading assignments

  • visual and contextual analysis of art in writing assignments and exams

  • journals assessing learning in and out of the classroom

  • research projects resulting in papers or presentations

  • class field trips

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS:

  • Analyze and work creatively with art historical data, using it to better understand the history of art and visual culture.

  • Evaluate primary and secondary art historical sources, assessing their stakes and motives.

  • Assess the ways in which art is impacted by the viewer’s vantage point.

  • Articulate the relationship between art and its historical, social and political context.

  • Recognize and differentiate various styles of art and evaluate how values and interpretations change over time.

  • Recognize and identify parallels between the art historical past and the present.

  • Conduct a formal analysis of a work of art and articulate the way its elements are interrelated.

  • Research and write coherently about art history, using evidence to support arguments.

  • Use knowledge gained in the course to study fine art, art history, design, anthropology or history at a four-year institution.


 

THEMES, CONCEPTS, AND ISSUES:

  • The Visual Elements and Principles of Design

  • Techniques of Art Making

  • 2-Dimensional and 3-Dimensional Art

  • Painting Media

  • Drawing Media

  • Sculpture: Techniques and Media

  • Installation Art

  • Land Art and Site Specific Art

  • Public Art

  • The History of Craft

  • Contemporary Craft

  • Contemporary Global Art

  • The Role of the Artist in Society

  • Art and Politics

  • Art and Religion

  • Art and Culture

  • Art and Aesthetics

  • Art and Social Justice