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History
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Building on a long tradition of intellectual innovation, the Department of Art History at UCLA endorses an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to art history of all periods and places. By thinking across current categories and boundaries and critically interrogating art history itself, our students are encouraged to question the canon, to rethink the relationships between margins and centers, and to practice a socially and politically responsible art history.

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Art is…

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution. —Paul Cézanne.

Art can lead to a new kind of knowledge of the world. —Svetlana Alpers.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination. —Henry David Thoreau.

Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said. —Louise Bourgeois.

[A] pictorial style gives access to the visual skills and habits and, through these, to the distinctive social experience. —Michael Baxandall.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. —George Bernard Shaw.

To create, one must first question everything. —Eileen Gray.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. —Aristotle.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. —Oscar Wilde.

Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. —Joseph Kosuth.

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration. —Frida Kahlo.

I dislike cults and isms. I want to paint in terms of my own thinking and feeling. —Georgia O’Keefe.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. —Thomas Merton.

I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I made works of art. —Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

What art offers is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit. —John Updike.

For Art and Joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand, fearing nought, and dreading no exposure. —James McNeill Whistler.

There’s no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it’s not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist. —Kara Walker.

One never finishes learning about art...they seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings. —E.H. Gombrich

[Art] is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings. —Leo Tolstoy

UCLA ART HISTORY PROFILE

Annie Carpenter

From: Los Alamitos, CA
UCLA Affiliation/Title: Student Affairs Officer/Departmental Counselo
Favorite Artwork: Alphonse Mucha, Summer, 1896

Most memorable UCLA Art History moment? In the time I’ve spent in the department so far, I’ve loved getting to know the wonderful students, faculty, and staff here! I’m so grateful for every opportunity to work with students to help them as they pursue their degrees. Working with our incredible faculty on projects and initiatives to support our undergraduate and graduate students has been so rewarding as well. I’m looking forward to creating many more memories here!

Would you like to share your UCLA Art History experience? Email us at arthistory@humnet.ucla.edu.