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Liberal Arts

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Degrees/Classes

Liberal Arts

Mission Statement

"Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art" ~ Leonardo daVinci

Artists who know nothing but art and design create art and design about nothing. An artist's creations do not come from a pencil, a piece of charcoal, a brush, or a computer. They come from the mind.

At the Academy, we believe that a seeking mind, inspired by the world and able to innovate, will enhance our students' artistic passion and make them stronger professionals. The goal of the Academy's Liberal Arts program is to foster the minds of creative individuals.

At the core of our Liberal Arts curriculum are comprehensive Art History and English curricula. The Academy celebrates the artistic traditions of the past and encourages emerging artists to situate themselves in this cultural continuum. The Art History sequence brings the great masterworks and their creators to life, engaging students both visually and critically. Highly literate as visual communicators, artists must also be able to express their ideas through written and oral communication.

Every artist, regardless of medium, is a storyteller. Thus, the Academy's unique English series focuses not only on the fundamentals of writing, but also on the elements of narrative. In addition to these core sequence courses, students have the opportunity to choose from a wide range of subjects in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, and Career Studies.

To ensure that the Liberal Arts curriculum is relevant to our students, each course highlights correlations between the subject of study and the major fields of art and design. In Music Appreciation, fashion and interior designers attend the opera to observe costuming, set design, and production work. In Ergonomics, industrial designers study what makes a chair comfortable. In Creative Writing, an illustrator may discover a passion for writing stories for children. Photographers who take astronomy learn the properties of light on field trips to observe the night sky, while cinematographers in art history discover that Scorsese and Coppola are fans of Caravaggio. In Semiotics, graphic designers, filmmakers, and advertisers decode symbols used in advertising, print media, and film. Our Business courses give artists the tools to promote and protect their work and to start their own businesses from the ground up. And the annual Study Abroad seminar has artists of every kind finding inspiration in the breathtaking cities of Europe.

The Academy of Art University strives to nurture the entire artist, and the Liberal Arts program is an integral component in this process.

Contact

Liberal Arts
Email: liberalarts@academyart.edu
Telephone: (415 ) 618-3664

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