Required textbook: Richard Lewis & Susan Lewis, The Power of Art, 3rd Edition, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston, 2014 (with access card to Cengage CourseMate).  Ebook with CourseMate available in campus bookstore and from Cengage.com (isbn: 978-1-285-78273-7) with 21-day free instant access.

Course Objectives: As stated in its Values and Educational goals, "Central Methodist University values its strong liberal arts tradition."  Thus, an understanding of the roles and power of the visual arts is essential to a liberal arts education since those arts play an increasingly important part in our culture and are an essential key to understanding cultures of the past.

1. To develop an understanding of the many important roles the visual arts have played in human culture throughout time and in the modern world today.

2. To learn how artists use line, form, light, texture, color, space, and time to express meaning.

3. To investigate the range of themes and content possible in the various media of art: drawing, printmaking, painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, crafts, and computer art.

4. To understand the principles of design used by artists in both the fine and applied arts.

5. To master the historical framework of how art has developed through time to express values from the most ancient cultures to the present.

Welcome to what I anticipate will be a colorful and exciting exploration of the world of the visual arts.  The arts have played an essential role in the development of human culture and do so today more than ever before.  The arts are woven into almost every aspect of our lives, perhaps even more than we realize.  Recognizing them and understanding how they speak to us will be the focus of this course.

 First we will examine the language of art—its elements, principles, and media and how they are used.  Then we will take a rapid tour through the history of the major expressions and movements in the art that stretches from prehistoric times to the present, focusing on countless masterpieces, setting each in its historical context.

We have much to include and we hope to vastly expand your grasp of the full range of the arts.  Come to our first class Tuesday with an open mind, prepared to encounter many of the famous (and lesser known) wonders of the world.  

 Looking forward to getting to know you this semester,

                                                                                  Henry B. Graham, Ph. D.