IE · Subject guide
Art
Leaving Certificate Art (NCCA specification), Higher and Ordinary Level, with the SEC examination.
01 · Overview
Art
Leaving Certificate Art (NCCA specification), Higher and Ordinary Level, with the SEC examination.
- Subject guide
- Leaving Certificate
- Topics mapped
- 18
02 · Complete topic map
Complete topic map
Every topic recorded for this subject in the curriculum is reproduced below in its full hierarchy. The descriptions reflect the mapped scope without implying additional exam rules.
- 01
Research Strand: Looking
Learners develop visual-detective skills by analysing artworks, recognising styles and features, using critical and visual language, and drawing on the natural and built environment as sources of inspiration.
- 02
Research Strand: Recording and Documenting
Learners gather and collate information across varied media, record visual observations through different techniques in a sketchpad, and justify their choice of media when capturing their interpretation of the world.
- 03
Research Strand: Experimenting and Interpretation
Learners extract and discriminate information from research, produce an annotated visual record of their enquiry, and apply problem-solving to experiment with ideas, media and techniques.
- 04
Research Strand: Contextual Enquiries
Learners situate their work within a changing social, political and ethical world, engage with recognised artists and artworks, and trace links across artists who explored similar themes.
- 05
Research Strand: Process (Investigation)
Learners formulate an area of enquiry, identify sources, draft supporting studies and visual responses, and articulate and annotate a rationale for their research decisions.
- 06
Create Strand: Making
Learners move from concept to realisation, interpreting primary sources such as the human figure and the environment and applying appropriate skills and techniques to create realised work from their research.
- 07
Create Strand: Contextual Enquiries
Learners apply and evaluate the art elements and design principles in their making, critique their own and others' work, and translate their learning in Visual Studies into practical outcomes.
- 08
Create Strand: Process (Development)
Learners describe their motivation, create and edit studies and realised work, understand the properties of chosen media, and connect research, process and decisions to the finished piece.
- 09
Create Strand: Realisation and Presenting
Learners curate and present work in a considered way, and evaluate, communicate and justify the meaning and context of their chosen pieces.
- 10
Respond Strand: Analysis
Learners discuss examples from Visual Studies, recognise artistic thinking and elements in their own and others' work, and question both established and new ideas.
- 11
Respond Strand: Contextual Enquiries
Learners locate their own work in relation to other artwork within stylistic, social, political and ethical contexts.
- 12
Respond Strand: Impact and Value
Learners value their own and others' work, argue the merit of a work using contextual evidence, and experience art through sensory and emotional responses.
- 13
Respond Strand: Critical and Personal Reflection / Process
Learners reflect on the development of ideas from conception to realisation, present sustained and varied investigation of a stimulus, and synthesise and justify their visual responses and decisions.
- 14
The Visual Studies Framework
A six-element lens (Context; Artists and Artworks; Analysis; Art Elements and Design Principles; Media and Areas of Practice; Innovation and Invention) used to study what was created before, during and after a period or movement.
- 15
Visual Studies Content Area 1: Europe and the Wider World
The Western art canon from Romanesque/Gothic through Renaissance and Baroque to Realism/Impressionism, Modernism and Post-1960, of which one section of focus is studied for the written exam.
- 16
Visual Studies Content Area 2: Ireland and Its Place in the Wider World
Significant periods of Irish art from Pre-Christian and Insular Art through Late Medieval, the Georgian period, Irish Modernism and Post-1960, of which one section of focus is studied for the written exam.
- 17
Visual Studies Content Area 3: Today's World
Critical literacy and contextual inquiry into everyday art and culture across all four sections of focus: Artists Theory and Thinking, Artists Processes and Media, Art as Social Commentary, and Art and the Environment.
- 18
Assessment: Coursework, Practical Examination and Written Examination
SEC assessment in three components from a shared stimulus brief: practical coursework (50%), a practical examination of up to five hours (20%) each with an artist's statement, and a 2.5-hour Visual Studies written examination (30%).
03 · Where this subject applies
Where this subject applies
These pathways and regions are explicitly connected to the subject in the curriculum.
Levels and pathways
Higher Level
Higher Level — the more demanding level, with broader and deeper content and the H1–H8 grade scale.
Ordinary Level
Ordinary Level — the foundational level covering the core of the syllabus, graded O1–O8.
Regions
All registered regions
04 · Official sources
Official sources
The public sources below are referenced directly by this subject or by one of its topics.
This editorial selection points to the relevant official bodies. Always confirm current requirements, dates and exceptional arrangements with your school and the responsible authority.
2
Public references
IE · EuraStudy Guides
Place this subject inside the complete curriculum.
Open the curriculum guide to see every subject and topic, or continue to EuraStudy Summa to begin working with the material.