Art History

The Art History consists of a combination of mandatory and elective courses.

There are two types of mandatory courses. These are: (1) study of methodological and theoretical foundations of art history; (2) art historical "skills" (e.g. criticism, museology).

Students will be able to choose from a variety of elective courses, ranging from early Christian art to contemporary photography. There are two types of elective course: (1) specialist courses; (2) general "broadening" courses.

Students will be expected to choose specialist courses that relate to the topic of the dissertation. General courses are intended to ensure that students maintain a broad knowledge of art history. Consequently they will be required to select two courses from each of the following thematic blocks: (a) Art of the Middle Ages; (b) Art of the Early Modern Period; (c) Modern and Contemporary Art; (d) The History of Architecture.

An interdisciplinary approach is offered by an additional selection of courses from other fields (students may choose at least one (4 credits) or substitute it by any other art history course.

In order to gain further skills and experience, students will also be required to independently carry out a professional activity outside the classroom. These can include one of the following:

publication of a study (of at least 10 pages) or a set of articles (of at least 20 pages) in a journal;
presentation of a paper at a conference;
editorial activities (thematic publications or a scientific journal);
professional internship at a domestic or foreign professional institution (such as, for example, a gallery, a museum, a heritage institution or a scientific research institute or publication).

Detail Information About the Study Structure

doc. Mgr. Pavel Suchánek, Ph.D.

Art History Programme Guarantor

e‑mail:

Associate Professor Pavel Suchánek is a historian of early modern Czech art and architecture. His research focuses on neo-classicism and materiality in central European Baroque.

Conditions for obtaining the master’s degree

Obtaining the assigned number of credits
Submission and defence of a master’s diploma thesis
Passing the master’s state exam with the following programme:

Methodology and philosophy of art history
Art history overview
Subject-are specialization

Master’s diploma thesis

The student asks a particular teacher for the assignment of the diploma thesis so that he/she can duly register and finish the prescribed diploma seminars.
The diploma assignment is entered for the student by the particular teacher (with the approval of the head of the department/institute) into the corresponding application of the IS (Information System). A part of the assignment of the diploma thesis is setting the language and possibly the main principles of work and the due date.
The range of the diploma thesis is given by the character of the discipline and the topic and must be at least 100 thousand characters. It is written on white paper of the A4 format, the numbered pages bound in a hard cover folder. Mandatory parts of the thesis are the title page which contains the name of the university, faculty, institute, name of the thesis, name of the author, name of the thesis supervisor and the year of submission, further also the author’s declaration of originality of the thesis, the book of contents and the list of used literature.
The student registers the diploma thesis in the IS at the beginning of the anticipated last term of his/her studies in which he/she will take the state exam and defend his/her diploma thesis.
The finished diploma thesis must be registered in the IS (see the procedure of entering the diploma thesis into the IS) and introduced in two copies for registration at the Office for Studies of the Dean’s Office and then submitted through the secretary of the department to the thesis supervisor. The diploma thesis must be signed by its supervisor.
The student must hand in the diploma thesis until 30th of April (for the state exams in the June schedule) and 30th of November (for the state exams in the autumn term).

Procedure of entering the diploma thesis into the IS

Two copies of the diploma thesis must be submitted before the prescribed deadline to the secretary of the Department of Art History.
The supervisor of the diploma thesis will award credits to the student (within 7 days of the student submitting the thesis – the student must have his/her studies active and the topic of his/her diploma thesis registered in the IS).
For obtaining the credits, the student must enter the thesis into the archive – cooperate with the Office for Studies.
5 days before the date of the defence, the student must submit a certificate issued by the Office for Studies confirming that the he/she met all the requirements to the secretary of the Department of Art History – afterward, the student may continue to defend his/her thesis and take the state exam.

The state exam

The student registers the bachelor state exam in the IS at the beginning of the anticipated last term of his/her studies in which he/she will take the bachelor state exam.
The master’s state exam after spring term must take place until the end of the third week in June, not later than 20th of June.
The master’s state exam in the autumn schedule and after the autumn term must take place until the end of the regular exam period.
The student must sign up for the state exam through the IS not later than 5 days before the set date of the exam. The defence of the bachelor diploma thesis is an integral part of the state exam of the single-subject study, or if history of art is the major of a double-subject study. In principle, the defence and the state exam take place in the same day.
At least 5 days before the state exam, the student must ask the Office for Studies of the Dean’s Office to issue a certificate confirming that the he/she met all the requirements of the study programme. Without this certificate, the student cannot be allowed to take the state exam.

The master’s state exam consists of three parts:

Main question from the student’s subject-area, i.e. arising from the topic of the diploma thesis.
Follow-up question: one question from four basic areas (Middle Ages, early modern period, modern art, architecture), which each consist of five topics. The student will prepare for a topic from each of the four areas and one of these four will be chosen for him/her to present by the state exam committee. The student will also prepare a list of literature which he/she used.
Historiography/methodology: Testing of knowledge of historiography and methodology based on one of the titles from the mandatory reading list, which will be the basis for more general question.