Undergraduate award: Certificate in History of Art: Early Modern to Contemporary

Impressionistic painting of a steam train emerging through rain and mist, moving rapidly along railway tracks.

Explore art through the modern ages: ideas, movements and meanings

Looking for a way into the captivating world of art history? Join expert tutors to explore key objects and principles on a journey that starts with early modern Britain, moves through twentieth-century European art, and brings us right up to date with a look at postmodern and contemporary visual culture.

Why choose this course with us?

Learn at Cambridge, whatever your experience: this is an open-entry course
Access Cambridge teaching in a flexible format: part-time and online
Gain a credited, Cambridge award: boost your learning and career opportunities
Join our peer-learning and Cambridge alumni communities: connection and support, for life

Course Dates

Course information

Course highlights

During this part-time online Certificate course, you will explore different periods of Western art and visual culture within a chronological survey.

As part of our learning community, you will:

become familiar with major themes in Western visual culture from the early modern to the contemporary
feel empowered to conduct your own visual analyses of artworks across all media
learn how to place artworks in their broader historical context, including political, cultural and theoretical

Course breakdown

The course will run from 17 October 2026 to 9 June 2027.

Each term's teaching usually takes place on Thursday evenings, with occasional Saturday afternoon sessions. Exact teaching dates and times will be confirmed in the course guide upon enrolment.

Michaelmas term: Restoration to Pre-Raphaelites

Unit 1 start date: 17 October 2026
Unit 1 end date: 6 January 2027

The period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries saw immense shifts in terms of artistic styles and movements, from a British Baroque inspired by the huge numbers of migrant artists from the Continent, to the “Golden Age” of the eighteenth century, to a Victorian Britain in which conflict emerged between those artists and designers who sought to create innovative contemporary styles and those who immersed themselves in a revival of the arts of the past. During this time art came to be seen as a means of social reform, with the highest standards of design and craftsmanship being extended to the decorative as well as to the fine arts.

Lent term: Twentieth-century European art

Unit 2 starts: week commencing 4 January 2027
Unit 2 end date: 24 March 2027

Starting with Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, developments of painting styles on the continent began to reflect technological, social and political change, showing an increasing commitment to the modern world. This unit charts the history of European art from the late 19th century through the avant-garde movements of the 1910s–30s (Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism). Finally, we will consider the years leading to World War II and its immediate aftermath, a time when the European artistic landscape underwent a dramatic shift.

Easter term: Postmodernism and Contemporary Art

Unit 3 starts: week commencing 29 March 2027
Unit 3 end date: 9 June 2027

From the 1960s onwards, artistic practices on both sides of the Atlantic shifted away from traditional media such as painting to focus on technologically-mediated practices (photography, video art, installation art). Moreover, the rise of the “neo-avant-gardes” inaugurated a new relation between art and life, with movements such as Fluxus, Land Art, and Performance Art. This unit traces how these two distinct yet connected frameworks developed over the 1960s and 1970s, and how they have continued to be relevant to recent and contemporary art since the 1980s, from mass media appropriation to art using digital technologies.

After the course

This course gives you a wide-ranging introduction to art history and equips you with visual analysis skills that you can go on to apply in your life, whether personally or professionally.

Want to continue your studies with us at this level? You can apply for the Certificate in History of Art: Classical to Renaissance. On completion of both certificates, you can apply for the award of Certificate of Higher Education in History of Art. You may decide to study at a higher level, including the Diploma in History of Art: British Visual Culture and the Diploma in History of Art: Renaissance and Baroque, and we would be happy to advise on this.