McGill University

McGill University is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Canada. It was officially founded by royal charter issued by King George IV in 1821. The University bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Scotland whose bequest in 1813 formed the precursory McGill College.

McGill's main campus is set at the foot of Mount Royal in Downtown Montreal, with the second campus situated near fields and forested lands in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, also on the Montreal Island, 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of the main campus. All the academic units are organized into 11 main Faculties and Schools. The University is one of two members of the Association of American Universities located outside the United States.

McGill offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, with the highest average admission grade of any Canadian university. Most students are enrolled in the five larger Faculties, namely Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Management.Tuition fees vary significantly between in-province, out-of-province, and international students, as well as between faculties.Scholarships are generous, yet highly competitive and relatively difficult to attain, compared to other institutions of higher learning in the country.

The arts

The arts represent an outlet of expression, that is usually influenced by culture and which in turn helps to change culture. As such, the arts are a physical manifestation of the internal creative impulse. Major constituents of the arts include literature – including poetry, novels and short stories, and epics; performing arts – among them music, dance, and theatre; culinary arts such as baking, chocolatiering, and winemaking; media arts like photography and cinematography, and visual arts – including drawing, painting, ceramics, and sculpting. Some art forms combine a visual element with performance (e.g. film) and the written word (e.g. comics).

From prehistoric cave paintings to modern day films, art serves as a vessel for storytelling and conveying mankind's relationship with its environment.

Definitions

In its most basic abstract definition, art is a documented expression of a sentient being through or on an accessible medium so that anyone can view, hear or experience it. The act itself of producing an expression can also be referred to as a certain art, or as art in general.

Building

A building or edifice is a structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of shapes, sizes and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, to land prices, ground conditions, specific uses and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term building compare the list of nonbuilding structures.

Buildings serve several needs of society – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the outside (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful).

Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasess of artistic expression. In recent years, interest in sustainable planning and building practices has also become an intentional part of the design process of many new buildings.

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa (also known as the UI, U of I, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1847, Iowa is the oldest university in the state. The University of Iowa is the flag ship university for the state of Iowa. The University of Iowa is organized into eleven colleges offering more than 200 areas of study and seven professional degrees.

The Iowa campus spans 1,700 acres centered along the banks of the Iowa River and includes the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, named one of "America’s Best Hospitals" for the 25th year in a row. The university was the original developer of the Master of Fine Arts degree and it operates the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Iowa has very high research activity, and is a member of several research coalitions, including the prestigious Association of American Universities, the Universities Research Association, and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. The Iowa alumni network exceeds 250,000, and the university budgeted revenues and expenses of $3.513 billion for 2015.

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, photography, video, filmmaking and architecture. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.

Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term 'artist' was often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms.Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts.