Art History and Historical Image Studies Major Subject (Academic)

Welcome to the Bachelor's degree programme in Art History and Historical Image Studies at Bielefeld University. The teaching staff will familiarise you with art, images, artefacts and visual culture from the Middle Ages to the present day. You will learn to describe and analyse paintings, sculptures, architecture, technical images, photographs and visual products such as diagrams, maps, carpets, etc. and to ask questions about this material.

The speciality of Bielefeld Art History and Historical Image Studies is that we work with a broad, media- and material-informed concept of the image. All images - including those from seemingly trivial contexts - are not "simply there and show something": an image does not simply duplicate an object of reality, but produces it in the first place. A fact that applies equally to medieval books of hours and AI-generated art. The degree programme encompasses a broad field of content and theory that is constantly evolving, incorporates media (technologies) and examines un_consciously inscribed structures of power and order.

Another special feature of our Bachelor's degree programme is the close cooperation with museums and institutions in the region, which means that the theoretical knowledge acquired can be immediately tested and intensified in practice on site. With a background in visual and art studies, our graduates have a wide range of opportunities: students in the minor subject acquire basic visual skills that can be used profitably in other subjects; students in the major subject are ideally prepared for corresponding master courses; and for all those who want to enter the professional world after completing their bachelor's degree, a wide range of fields such as exhibitions, museums, the art market, journalism, archives, publishing, cultural tourism and much more are open to them.