Assessment Specifications

Level 2 Art History 2023

General information

Information relating to all achievement standards

Candidates will be provided with:

• one resource booklet for use with all 3 standards, containing 18 plates (6 plates for each area of study)
• a question-and-answer booklet for each standard.

Candidates are encouraged to write a concise response of no more than 750–800 words (4–5 pages) for each standard. Assessment will be based on the quality of the response rather than its length.

Information in planning spaces will not be marked.

The assessment will be available to candidates in paper or digital format. Further information about digital external assessments can be found on the Digital Assessments: NCEA Online page.

Areas of study

1. Aspects of Gothic Art (c.1120–1420)

Styles:

• Architecture [e.g. Chartres Cathedral (France), Saint Chapelle (France), Duomo (Siena), Palazzo Pubblico (Siena)].
• Visual art and sculpture [e.g. stained glass, book illumination, altar panels, frescoes, relief and free-standing sculpture: Chartres windows, Les Très Riches Heures (Limbourg brothers), Luttrell Psalter, Duccio, Martini, Giotto, Lorenzetti brothers, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano (Sienese works)].

Meanings:

• Religious beliefs (e.g. holy figures, Christian events and stories)
• Domestic and everyday life (e.g. rituals, roles of men and women, work)
• The natural world (e.g. nature, landscape, the seasons)
• Wealth and influence (e.g. patronage, civic and religious power).

Contexts:

• Towns and civic (e.g. guilds, workshops, meeting places)
• Social and domestic (e.g. family life, dwellings)
• The Church (e.g. chapels, cathedrals)
• Economic (e.g. markets, trade, patronage).

2. Towards Modernism (c.1780–1900) 

Artists:

• Jacques Louis David
• Vigée Le Brun
• Eugène Delacroix
• Édouard Manet
• Edgar Degas
• Antonio Canova
• Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres
• Théodore Géricault
• Claude Monet
• Mary Cassatt
• Gustave Courbet
• Honoré Daumier
• Jean-François Millet
• Paul Gauguin
• Georges Seurat
• Berthe Morisot
• Vincent van Gogh
• Paul Cézanne.

Buildings and structures:

• L’Arc de Triomphe
• The Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève)
• The Eiffel Tower.

Styles:

• Neoclassicism
• Impressionism
• Iron and steel innovations
• Post-Impressionism
• Realism
• Architectural Revivalism (Neoclassical)
• Romanticism.

Meanings:

• Conflict and suffering
• Depictions of men and women (including portraiture)
• Work and leisure
• Contemporary events in this period
• Modernity (e.g. cities, railways, café society, technological innovations).

Contexts:

• Economic (e.g. wealth, prosperity, patronage)
• Social (e.g. domestic life, social class, rural and urban environments) 
• Political (e.g. revolution, national identity)
• Philosophical (e.g. enlightenment, orientalism, socialism)
• Technological (e.g. industrialisation, mass production, new materials).

3. Art in Aotearoa (c.1800–1980)

Artists:

• Augustus Earle
• Charles Heaphy
• John Kinder
• C.F. Goldie
• Gottfried Lindauer
• Rita Angus
• William Sutton
• Doris Lusk
• Robyn Kahukiwa
• Frances Hodgkins
• Cliff Whiting
• Colin McCahon.

Styles:

• Whare and wharenui, whakairo, kōwhaiwhai, tukutuku and raranga
• New Zealand painting (colonialism, regionalism and emerging identity).

Meanings:

• Sense of place (e.g. exploration, identity, landscape)
• Spiritual and religious beliefs
• Cultural
• Social and everyday life (e.g. domestic life, customs, representations of men and women).

Contexts:

• Artistic (e.g. traditional, cultural interaction, international influences)
• Geographic (e.g. land and sea, regions)
• Social (e.g. community, rural and urban environments)
• Historical (e.g. colonial, national identity).

The Art History Guidelines can be found on the Art History subject page.

Specific information for individual achievement standards

Candidates will be required to answer ONE of two questions from their area of study. To answer their chosen question, candidates select TWO art works. BOTH art works must be from the resource booklet.

Candidates will be expected to use the language of art history to demonstrate understanding of formal elements of art (form, colour, composition, tone, technique, media/materials, light, line, space, scale, decorative features).

Candidates will be required to answer ONE of two questions from their area of study. To answer their chosen question, candidates select TWO art works. One art work must be from the resource booklet and the other art work may be selected from the resource booklet, or may be a work of the candidate’s own choice. 

Candidates will be expected to demonstrate understanding of meanings listed in these assessment specifications. 

Candidates will be required to answer ONE of two questions from their area of study. To answer their chosen question, candidates select TWO art works. One art work must be from the resource booklet, and the other art work may be selected from the resource booklet or may be a work of the candidate’s own choice.

Candidates will be expected to demonstrate understanding of how the context(s) listed in these assessment specifications have influenced the characteristics and production of art works.

Art History subject page

Examination timetable