Learn to Approach Art with Confidence

Art Appreciation for Beginners is an introductory online course that will help you approach artworks confidently and intelligently by evaluating visual art based on what you see.

Art Appreciation for Beginners

On this website, I usually discuss art history – the characteristics of styles, explanations of terms and concepts, and other stuff like that. But this course is a bit different. Instead of giving you facts and stories about art, it teaches you a set of skills, including:

• Active looking
• Identifying and analyzing the visual building blocks of art
• Describing what you see
• Comparing and contrasting different artists’ approaches
• The varying ways art creates meaning and tells stories
• The elements of artistic interpretation

These skills won’t give you the kinds of insights that art history does, but they are valuable companions to art history because they teach you to analyze art based on what you see rather than relying on facts you’ve already learned. Thus, you’ll be able to connect with artworks even when you don’t know anything about their history or context. No prior knowledge or experience is required.

This approach is useful and accessible to beginners, since it doesn’t require a big commitment of time and effort to studying art history, while more advanced students will benefit from valuable visual analysis skills. I learned these methods while getting my art history degree, but they’re not typically taught outside the college classroom. Either way, this new skills will let you have meaningful art experiences where your opinions matter, instead of relying exclusively on museum guidebooks or tours.

Click below to learn more and join the course.