Colchester, United Kingdom

Art History and Theory

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: arts
Kind of studies: full-time studies, part-time studies
University website: www.essex.ac.uk
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Art
Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.
Art History
Art history is the study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts; that is genre, design, format, and style. The study includes painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, furniture, and other decorative objects.
History
History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians.
Theory
A theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking, or the results of such thinking. Depending on the context, the results might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings.
Theory
The successful development of science requires a proper balance between the method of building up from observations and the method of deducing by pure reasoning from speculative assumptions...
Paul Dirac, “Physical Science and Philosophy”, Nature (1937) Vol. 139, p. 1001.
History
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, "The Hero as Divinity"
Art
I am willing to let it rest on the determination of every reader, whether the pleasure which he has received from these effects of calm and luminous distance be not the most singular and memorable of which he has been conscious... It is not then by nobler form, it is not by positiveness of hue, it is not by intensity of light... that this strange distant space possesses its attractive power. But there is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is—Infinity. ...No work of any art, in which this expression of infinity is possible, can be perfect or supremely elevated, without it.
John Ruskin, Modern Painters (1860) Vol. 2, Ch. V
Understanding how glacier sliding and iceberg calving contribute to loss in ice sheet models can improve predictions of global sea-level changes. This is hampered by the inaccessibility of a glacier's base and its calving front.
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