The Department of Art offers, at the graduate level, the M.A.C. in Art Conservation, and the Ph.D. and the M.A. in Art History. At the undergraduate level, the Department offers the B.A.(Hons.) degree in Art History.

The art conservation program is an interdisciplinary program designed to achieve an adequate blend of academic study and practical work with cultural property in the laboratory and in the museum, art gallery, archive or library. To this end, specially designed laboratories fitted with up to date equipment for a wide range of restoration and conservation activities are annexed to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. In addition, extensive use is made of the facilities available in the Art Centre, the Department of Art, Queen's University Archives, Stauffer Library Special Collections, and the collaborating Science departments.

The art history program consists of studies in the history of Western art: more specifically, in the history of art and architecture of the Medieval Renaissance and Baroque periods, and of art and architecture of the Modern and Contemporary periods in Europe and North America. Research in the history of Canadian art is undertaken with a view to imparting critical understanding of this area and in order to stimulate serious consideration of this field in relation to the dominant history of Western art. The Department is strongly committed to the training of graduate students in a variety of approaches, methodologies, and issues; those involved in and raised by the study of non-Western art are emphasized because of the critical perspective they furnish on the discipline.

Recognizing the increasing need for art historians to know more about the history of technique, restoration, and the relation of conservation to art history, the Department has developed a number of advanced courses in the area of interaction between conservation and art history. It is uniquely equipped to do so with the art conservation program and its laboratories on campus and with several art historians and conservators actively doing research in the area. The interaction between art history and the museum is also addressed in advanced courses in the Department, which offers course credit to graduate students in art history for a practicum for M.A. students at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and a directed research program for Ph.D. students in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Liaison is also maintained with other Departments in the Humanities, particularly Classics, English, History; with the Modern Language Departments, and with the programs in Canadian and in Medieval, Renaissance and Women's studies, so that graduate students may take additional courses in such fields if needed. In the Sciences, interdepartmental liaison is maintained particularly with Chemistry and Physics, which are of interest to the art conservation program.

The Art Library located in the Stauffer Library comprises some 60,000 items (including exhibition catalogues) on all aspects of art history and on art technology, restoration, conservation and exhibition, supplemented by microfiche and microfilm facilities. The Department holds some 200,000 photographs and 220,000 slides of architecture, painting and sculpture, art technology, restoration, and conservation, many of which are also availably digitally. Vast digital collections of texts and images are also available through the Queen's libraries. Graduate Students also have access to the computers, printers, scanners, and software necessary for textual and visual research in the Winifred Ross Multimedia Room. Extensive Canadian archival material on art and architecture is also available elsewhere in Stauffer Library and the University Archives. The library also has rich holdings of rare books, including an unusually strong collection of European architectural treatises.

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre, which has a close working relationship with the Department, offers outstanding collections in select areas of Western and non-Western art for examination and research. Part of the permanent collection is on display at all times; the rest, which is in storage, is available to graduate students by appointment. The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), which permits access to information about the holdings of public collections across the country, is also accessible to graduate students through the Art Centre.

Admissions

Applicants are accepted under the general regulations of the School of Graduate Studies.

Admission to the M.A. program is limited. Applicants are normally recommended for admission by the Faculty Committee on Graduate Studies. This Committee may direct the applicant to take certain secondary courses complementary to the Degree program, if this is deemed advisable in the light of the needs of the individual student. Admission is normally limited to students with a degree in Art History and a minimum strong upper second class standing in the upper years of their B.A. program.