DD is interested in a dual major or major/minor in science and art. Her art interests are purely representational, which is not the most popular on campuses at this time.
Can anyone at Bard give an opinion on the quality of the teaching in “traditional” techniques such as figure drawing from life, realistic portraiture, etc? We are heading back East for our first college exploration tour, and want to focus on schools who could feed this side of the art coin. Thank you!!!
I can’t answer your question specifically but the student art I saw while touring with my artistic child was the most impressive I saw at the dozen and a half LACs we toured together. There was some major talent.
doschicos, what kind of art was she doing? And were there any other schools that impressed you with realistic type art?
Oil painting was the medium of preference.
Bard stood out, definitely. Fine Art was just one area of interest and Bard came off the application list for other reasons. I honestly don’t remember see a lot of student art at other colleges we looked at. Maybe we got lucky to catch things on display at Bard or they are better at displaying it. I also think the case is they have a lot more students majoring in fine art than other LACs. This was 5 years ago so my memory was fuzzy but I do remember we were impressed.
Thank you very much!!! As a non-artist, I am learning a lot in this process!!
I will say that any good art program should teach the core basics and fundamentals which should include figure painting, portraiture, etc. - the traditional foundation. I would look at major requirements and see what they entail.
Our tour at Bard included a gallery that was only student art. Very impressive (although I am the idiot who “knows nothing about art but knows what he likes”). Tufts has a joint degree program with the museum of fine arts. May be more intense than what you’re looking for. ?
The Studio Arts program at Bard is very connected to New York City and the art scene there. It is definitely going to be heavily influenced by current ideas and trends in modern art. Would a student be able to get a traditional grounding in the technique of representational art? Definitely. Will that be the style of finished work of the professors? Less likely. Check out the website: http://studioarts.bard.edu - you can see samples of student work there, and there is a list of the faculty whose work you could explore. And here is the course list: http://studioarts.bard.edu/course/ There is a museum on campus, and a Masters offered in Curatorial Studies.
Thank you so much! I find your comment about “style of finished work” very helpful to think about - never considered that angle.