AQA History of Art A Level

Oh wow!! Someone who does History of Art!!!! Haha, I thought this day would never come

I did questions on 1946-2000. Our questions were also pretty sucky. Nothing on sculpture, one specifically on installation and the two questions on paintings were quite binding. Either self portraits (there aren't that many around this century...) or PAINTINGS which show the progression of the artist. So much of the art in this period isn't painting... couldn't do anything about body/land/conceptual/video/performance. One on non-domestic architecture which was nice, only because I'd done a practice question earlier.

Doing the 1900-1945 option for unit 4. I imagine the questions will be rubbish again. I should also probably start revising....

yayyy I found someone who does H of A I don't think many schools do it. Your questions sound hard as well. It's wierd that they would make them so specific in the first year when we had no idea what to expect Modern art sounds quite interesting, I have done Baroque and Gothic art which is so different. Good luck in the paper on thursday!

Baroque and Gothic must be so beautiful!

Modern Art is interesting, not particularly nice to look at but interesting. Also, it's nice to know WHY people created such ridiculous things and once you understand them they are pretty cool. You also have some sort of factual backing and understanding if you still dislike them though rather than just being another person saying "Oh Modern Art is rubbish!"

Yeah, I much preferred the AS, it was so fun and really very easy compared to this =_= The curriculum is so vague and the questions are so specific, it's such a messy subject...! Good luck on Thursday too

What's AH like at your school? There were 4 of us for AS at mine and there's 2 of us for A2. Teaching's a bit crazy and our current teacher just did an open univeristy degree... we just get given reams of photocopies from her textbooks and some summary sheets of each movement she's typed up.

I agree about the modern art being interesting but not nice to look at although I like things like Rothko and the Surrealists. I think some modern art is a waste of time though like the painting I think is called 'Grey' in the Tate Modern!! Gothic and Baroque are interesting because they are very different from each other. Do you get mixed up at all with your two periods??

AS was a lot more vague and we could just about pick images from any art historical period. We have had 3 people including me the whole way through the course but it only started for my year because I asked the headteacher for the subject. One of the teachers is my mum because she said she had a degree in it when we asked !! We also have reams of photocopies but I guess that is how we are going to get the most information. We had summary sheets as well and have watched lots of videos. I think A2 has been OK but I prefered AS because we could pick and choose what we liked more and the analysis bit was interesting. Has your teacher given you a list of titles which you have to get works of art for like formal characteristics and influences ect?

I think the vagueness of the AS meant you could always play to your strengths which is nice! Also, I didn't have to revise since I only talked about works I already liked and knew about XD If I didn't like something, I just didn't have to learn it! No such luck for A2... actual revision and then the majority of it was fruitless as the questions were so damn specific. It's frustrating as I felt I could've written really good essays on so many other things, but hey, I guess what I thought were horrible questions someone else loved!

We've had lists, but not with titles like that... for each movement (Surrealism, Fauvism etc.) we've been told to learn 3 paintings by one artist and 2 more by 2 different artists. We've then also done things under the topic of like.. "Primitive influence", "Feminism", "Representations of the human body" etc.

I'm guessing Gothic and Baroque don't split into so many individual movements and so you categorise works by formal qualities instead?

I agree about the AS... we could just about write about which ever work of art we wanted to with the questions we got. I learnt so many examples for the exam last week but I couldn't write about most of them. Gothic and Baroque can be split up into movements like rayonnant and early gothic etc but not such clear distinctions as the modern ones so we had a list which our teachers got at a course from the head examiner. But even that only lists stuff like 'narrative' and 'religious paintings'. I have learnt 43 works of art for each paper so I hope that is enough

How'd you find the 2nd paper? I thought it was much better! Much nicer questions than the first one for our unit!

Yes I was sooo happy because I thought they would give way more specific questions but they were definitely more general. I read question 1 for 13th and 14th century which just asked for 3 sculptures and I thought they had missed a bit out because it wasn't on cathedral sculpture or portraits etc. At least I could write something because I was worried that I would forget all the images I had learnt! What were your questions like? Did they focus on specific movements or throughout the time period? Also, did your teacher take you on trips during the 2 years or did you just learn from books/ internet?

I think the vagueness of the AS meant you could always play to your strengths which is nice! Also, I didn't have to revise since I only talked about works I already liked and knew about XD If I didn't like something, I just didn't have to learn it! No such luck for A2... actual revision and then the majority of it was fruitless as the questions were so damn specific. It's frustrating as I felt I could've written really good essays on so many other things, but hey, I guess what I thought were horrible questions someone else loved!

We've had lists, but not with titles like that... for each movement (Surrealism, Fauvism etc.) we've been told to learn 3 paintings by one artist and 2 more by 2 different artists. We've then also done things under the topic of like.. "Primitive influence", "Feminism", "Representations of the human body" etc.

I'm guessing Gothic and Baroque don't split into so many individual movements and so you categorise works by formal qualities instead?