By BRIANA ARRINGTON

bca008@latech.edu

 

Over the next three weeks, art students may fall in love with Paris, or at least a painting exhibit. The students departed last Saturday for the French Quarter study abroad program.

Students will spend the next several weeks studying the masters of art in Paris.

“Everyone I’ve talked to who has gone said they absolutely loved it,” Elizabeth McGhee, a senior communications design major, said.

Jonathan Donehoo, a professor of art, who is attending this year’s program, said the students will see 15 to 20 major art museums, galleries and cites.

“The art department and the university truly believe foreign study is important in preparing students for a much larger spectrum in their field of study,” Donehoo said. “We not only want the students to see great paintings, but also various architecture and sculptures.”

Some of these sites include the Louvre Museum, where the Mona Lisa is preserved, and the Pompidou Center, famous for its contemporary art.

The students will also visit significant sites in towns surrounding Paris, such as Chartres, where they will view the fountains of impressionist Claude Monet, the world-renowned Chartres Cathedral and the town of Auvers, where Vincent Van Gough spent his last few weeks before his suicide.

“We will visit the grave of Van Gough, which, as an artist, is a very moving experience,” Donehoo said.

Dean C. Dablow, director for the School of Art and a professor of art, and Donehoo agreed the experience, with all of its energy and resources, is meant to broaden the minds of students.

“We can show a student a particular piece of artwork a thousand times on a slide,” Dablow said. “But believe me when I say that nothing beats actually seeing it.”

Students can receive up to 12 credit hours towards their degrees by the program.

“The trip correlates with about six or seven undergraduate courses and two graduate courses,” Donehoo said.

The students attend Tech for the first two weeks of the quarter, then spend three weeks in “The City of Lights” and return to Tech to finish their term.

McGhee said she is going as part of her Art History 499 class.

“We will still have class in Paris, but from what I gather, it’s more fun than work,” McGhee said.

Donehoo said classes in Paris are flexible, and he and the other two faculty members try to work around schedules so that the program feels more like a “really neat field trip.”

This is only the second year the art department has had the means for the program.

“It is fairly new,” Donehoo said. “Our first time to go was the year before last, and last year we couldn’t get enough students in time.”

Donehoo and Dablow are both set on making the program an annual, ongoing event.

“We really believe in this and the benefits it can have for our students, so we want to do everything we can to support it,” Donehoo said.