Undergraduates

Our aim

Our undergraduate courses aim to help students understand the many different ways that works of art convey meaning – especially students new to art history study.

How we do this

We do this by engaging closely with individual works of art both in reproduction and, most importantly, in the original.

We also investigate how texts written by critics, philosophers and artists themselves illuminate the nature of artistic activity and changing ideas about the relationship between art and society.

Florence visit

Students taking our undergraduate degree courses in Art History and Literature and Art History have the opportunity of experiencing original works of art during a compulsory 12-day study visit to Florence. Optional trips are also available to Paris, Berlin and other European cities.

Gallery visits

All students have regular opportunities to participate in gallery visits to museums and galleries in London - just an hour's journey by train. There are also ongoing programmes of exhibitions of contemporary art at the Univeristy's Art Exchange gallery and at Firstsite in Colchester.

Students can also work with the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA), which is based at the University and includes more than 600 works by modern and contemporary artists.