Art History and History

Art history and history together illuminate the full range of human activity in the past, combining the study of objects, images, and buildings with the study of events, societies, and ideas. Art history examines how visual and material cultures are produced, circulated, and interpreted, considering works across a wide range of media and techniques and situating them in their historical, social, and cultural contexts. History provides the broader analytical and evidential frameworks for understanding how societies change over time.

Together these disciplines develop an unusually rich way of engaging with the past, one that takes seriously both written and visual evidence.

At Aberdeen this four-year full-time programme immerses you in all aspects of human activity in the past, encompassing art, architecture, curation, and the global connectedness of European art across its full complexity. You will develop skills in visual analysis, art-historical research, historical argument, and the critical evaluation of primary and secondary sources. The programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study at an international partner institution and engage with art and history from a different national vantage point, an experience that is particularly valuable in a discipline where the ability to encounter works in person and in context matters.

You will learn to look carefully, to read widely, to write clearly, and to argue from evidence, developing both specialist knowledge and genuinely transferable capacities that open a range of career options.

Graduates of art history and history programmes move into careers in museums and galleries, heritage management, auction houses and the art market, cultural policy, publishing, education, journalism, arts administration, and the civil service. Many continue to postgraduate study in art history, museum studies, heritage management, or history, building towards curatorial, research, or specialist professional careers.