History of Art & Architecture
The Department of the History of Art & Architecture at Middlebury College is dedicated to the belief that study of the visual arts provides a rewarding framework for a liberal arts education.
Our students study works of art and architecture as objects of intrinsic significance, as well as in relation to the Western and non-Western cultures that produced them. Our goals are to help students attain:
• a broad, general exposure to the history of art and architecture;
• a familiarity with the formal properties of works of art and architecture;
• the critical and analytical tools for the study of the history of art and architecture;
• the ability to ask meaningful questions about works of art and architecture by seeing them as manifestations of culture in a historical context; and
• extensive first-hand experience of actual works of art and architecture.
For senior majors, a trip during the final week of winter term to an important artistic center (New York or another large city) is an integral component of study in this department.
