The Art Appreciation course explores the world’s visual arts, focusing on the development of visual awareness, assessment, and appreciation by examining a variety of styles from various periods and cultures while emphasizing the development of a common visual language. The materials are meant to foster a broader understanding of the role of visual art in human culture and experience from the prehistoric through the contemporary.

This is an Open Educational Resource (OER), an openly licensed educational material designed to replace a traditional textbook. The course materials consist of 24 lessons each with a presentation, reading list, and/or sample assignment. For ease of adapting, materials are available as PDFs and Microsoft PowerPoint or Word documents.

This resource is a complete course in art appreciation/art history for an art 100 or arthist 101 level. It is most complete in its art history sections including non-Western art. The introductory materials on techniques and media are not as comprehensive, but the art period overviews are very good. There is a complete list of sources, licenses, and attributions located at the end of every module. This resource lends itself to inclusion in a modular fashion and there is a fee-based LMS integration available if desired. Quiz files and lecture slides are also available, although that may also be on a fee-basis.

This book aims to act as your map through the world of African art. As such, it will help you define the competencies you need to develop–visual analysis, research, noting what information is critical, asking questions, and writing down your observations–and provide opportunities for you to practice these skills until you are proficient. It will also expose you to new art forms and the worlds that produced them, enriching your understanding and appreciation.

This OER focuses on using specific American Indian artworks as examples for understanding design terms through an Art Appreciation survey course discussion revolving around the question, “What is Art?” The terms covered include, but are not limited to the following: style, content, subject ma er, form, nonobjective, abstract, naturalistic, representational, outsider, insider.

The primary pedagogical approaches will be engaging students in dialogue and allowing for a broader visual vocabulary through the study of American Indian works of Art, both contemporary and past. The discussions will give additional context to the work through information relating to the artists and their communities. A rubric will be utilized to assess the discussions.

This is Volume 1 of a textbook for a Fine and Performing Arts survey, an introductory course.

This is Volume 2 of a textbook for a Fine and Performing Arts survey, an introductory course. It covers Theatre and Cinema.

Facilitating a Group Discussion: A Brief Survey and Comparative Analysis of Native American Perceptions in Art, Then and Now

This OER takes a comparative analysis of Native American perceptions in Art and integrates this into an Art Appreciation survey course discussion. The context with which the content fits is "Themes of Art." This dialogue begins with the students' base knowledge of the subject, proceeded by observations of the works of contemporary, female Native American Artist, Wendy Red Star and the paintings of non-native, male artists from the 1800s (i.e. Alfred Jacob Miller, Charles Wimar, George Catlin, Frederic Remington, and Charles M. Russell). The primary pedagogical approaches will be engaging students in dialogue and allowing for a broader visual vocabulary through the study of historical works of art. Large groups will break into more detail specific, smaller groups. The crux of the exercise is to facilitate an appreciation of these works, through socio-political means (outsiders looking in) and the perspective of self-reflection, that of the insider's view.

In this lesson, students take a field trip to Gallery 44 and Tangled Art + Disability to explore contemporary and disability-focused art. At Gallery 44, they will engage with modern photography and artistic practices, while at Tangled Art + Disability, they will learn about art created by and for individuals with disabilities. This immersive experience allows students to appreciate diverse artistic expressions, understand the role of arts organizations, and reflect on how art can represent different perspectives and experiences.

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the world of Art. Authored by four USG faculty members with advance degrees in the arts, this textbooks offers up-to-date original scholarship. It includes over 400 high-quality images illustrating the history of art, its technical applications, and its many uses.
Combining the best elements of both a traditional textbook and a reader, it introduces such issues in art as its meaning and purpose; its meaning and purpose; its structure, material, and form; and its diverse effects on our lives. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding the students’ educational experiences beyond the textbook. Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making it an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

This is a repository of various sites where OER materials can be found related to art history. Some, like that for the Smithsonian Museum, is useful for finding specific objects and information about them held by that museum. Other sites like Art Story (reviewed elsewhere on OER Commons) are more general textual sites for art historical periods. It is a good starting place for finding OER materials.

This is a resource like Merlot that contains a number of possible OER resources for educators. For the visual arts and culture there were 57 listed, however, many were not related to art history or art appreciation. The material which could be accessed here would be individual segments or material on specific objects. There are several sections on non-Western art including the art history in Korea and Africa, most of which were free pdfs produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are also resources that students could access for projects like a site with the complete letters of Vincent van Gogh. The quality of the resources was above average.

This is an introductory project that addresses identifying the Elements of Art and Principles of Composition in immediate surroundings and provides these terms a real-time life application. The project is interactive and exploratory, requiring individual observation of a students' physical world. This project can be modified to include more images, changes in grid template and combined to include both Elements and Principles together; incluiding identifying other terms in art such as mediums. The project can be used in an online formatted course or a face to face environment. Including Art Appreciation, Art Orientation, Two-Dimensional Design and Three-Dimensional Design studio courses. 

This resource is a complete text on the visual arts for a low level art appreciation course. It is most comprehensive on media, techniques, and methods, and less so on the art history timeline specifically. Material is commensurate with most art appreciation texts for college undergraduates on a 100 or 101 level course. The course is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, with material credited to Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, Smarthistory, and Khan Academy. The sections can be used individually and edited to suit specific class requirements. All images show licenses or credits, but might also be sourced separately.

This is a Module based unit for Art 100 Art Appreciations on What is Art? I has assignments, vocabulary, Flashcards, and projects. There is a link to the Canvas Commons version of this Module with full quizzes already created.