Art History and Film & Visual Culture

Art History and Film & Visual Culture at Aberdeen adds another dimension to your rigorous training in the history and theory of the moving image in the 21st century. You will study buildings, sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, decorative and industrial arts from all periods at Scotland’s top-rated university for the impact of its research in the history of art. You will gain the skills to open up a range of exciting career options.

Our unique Film and Visual Culture programme combines close analysis of visual objects and artefacts – analogue and digital, moving and still, underground and mainstream – with theories of visual representation, production and circulation. You will gain specialist knowledge and skills in the academic study of cinema, with an emphasis on building analytical skills in research and critical writing. You will also have the opportunity to develop skills in digital video production and web design.

You will complement this with extensive specialised knowledge of the history of painting, sculpture, architecture and the decorative arts in Europe and North America from the Middle Ages to the present day. You will study in buildings centuries old, yet with the most modern teaching and technology, inspired by teachers and researchers whose specialist areas range from Pictish art, medieval architecture, Italian Baroque painting, early modern prints, and Scottish and British painting from the 17th to 20th centuries.

Your specialist skills make you ideally placed to enter the art gallery and museum sectors, arts education, publishing and journalism, or fine art conservation. You will also gain transferable skills, including teamwork, time management, personal initiative and highly developed enquiry, analytical and presentational skills ideally suited to a range of careers.

Ranked the leading university in Scotland for the impact of Art History research and second in the UK in the latest UK Research Excellence Framework.