조형예술 대학에서 미술관련 전공자들에게 필수로 부과되었던 미술이론 수업의 가장 큰 줄기는 미술사였다. 그것은 과거 미술역사의 모범 답안인 명작 위주로 진행되어왔다. 미술사 수업은 시대별, 지역별로 분류된 구체적 예술작품을 통한 계보와 틀이 정해져있을 뿐 아니라, 미감에 대한 (서구 지식인의)보편성을 하나의 법칙(canon)화 시켰다는 장점으로 인해, 미술이론 교과목의 대부분을 차지해왔다.
Art History has been challenged by the interdisciplinary studies, such as cultural study, visual culture, and visual study. They all aim to widen the object of art and to undo the traditional value system of art history. Influenced both by post-colonialism and post-structuralism, visual culture formed its academic base criticizing art history's European-male subject's dominance and its esthetic canon. Criticism on art history's ignorance of subject, both of the viewer and the artist has been suggested by scholars like Pollock or Mirzoeff. Visual culture attempts to renew both the traditional perspective on art and its methodology. Considering the influences of mass produced everyday images, and the fact that traditional art's transgressing the barriers between genres and media, the exploration of the expanded realm of visual art is even more demanding. Yet, scholars, such as, Bal, Elkins, Hal, and more debate visual culture's lack of consistency and vague theoretic base. However, the research process of visual study, focusing on the analysis of visual elements with the help of new theoretic methods, is not far from that of art history. Both subjects attempted to read the visual image as a text. Without a concrete, predicted way of communicating, image, as a sign, convey several layers of interpretation. Deprived from structural obsession of theory, reading image might provide a new possibility for visual study and art history for the future art theory subject.