A newly-created chair of art history at UCC will open up significant new educational opportunities for students in the Munster area, who heretofore could pursue a degree course in the subject only at Trinity or UCD.
The first holder of the chair is Prof Alistair Rowan, who held a similar position at UCD until 1990 and was most recently principal of the Edinburgh College of Art. He is also a former Slade professor of fine art at Oxford.
The first intake of students (probably 90) will be in October when the course begins.
For many years the absence of such a degree in Cork has been felt, and though over the past decade UCC ran a highly successful pre-degree diploma course in the history of art, the need for a full degree course in a region that has always had an affinity with the visual arts was obvious.
In its five-year strategic plan, drawn up in 1999-2000, the arts faculty at UCC identified the history of art as a priority for development, and by May of last year the faculty had endorsed the recommendation of a working group that the subject be made available at degree level.
Prof Rowan, a native of Belfast, comes to his new post with much enthusiasm and the belief that the diploma course has laid the foundations for the degree course, which has been funded by an anonymous donor.
"I think Cork and Munster have a lot to offer in terms of the visual arts, and the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery is a superb asset in the city," said Prof Rowan.
"I hope to continue the very strong ties between the gallery and UCC. The evidence from the popularity of the diploma course suggests the degree course will be well supported, but I think, realistically, an initial intake of 90 students is about right. The exciting thing is that it's happening at UCC."
The course, says Prof Rowan, is about giving students the gift of "visual literacy", making them feel comfortable in the presence of art, helping them understand what they are seeing, and enabling them to discuss it armed with assurance and knowledge.
One of the first exercises, he said, will be to ask students to bring in a picture postcard of a favourite painting and talk about it to other students. Most students will be able to talk about a painting for about a minute. After that, they dry up; they have no more to say.
In the same way, the majority of people who go to art galleries will plump for a favourite painting, whatever that might be, and walk past the rest. "The degree, which encompasses art, architecture and sculpture, under the aegis of the history department, is about teaching people to think, to bring forward their ideas about art and give them a voice to express those ideas," Prof Rowan said.
"Cork is a wonderful city in which to be doing this. Some of the architecture in Munster is wonderful, and the diploma course has shown how deeply the visual arts are appreciated here. The thing is that with such a huge amount of visual culture all around us, it is important that we should be giving young people in the 21st century a handle on it."
The intention, he added, is to establish links with the Scuola Normale at Pisa, a leading Italian academy, and to develop a visual laboratory for students, giving them access to their own art history website. Prof Rowan has close ties with Italy, having studied and worked there.