Visual history is, as the name implies, wider than the history of art.
It looks at everything that is not a direct product of nature, on the grounds that anything that has been designed by human artifice is a potential subject of analysis. Whilst using the techniques that have been developed in the study of the history of art, it hopes to cross boundaries with them and to develop new analytic tools for a wider visual culture. Whilst there is a growing awareness of key issues in this field, the newly created Centre for Visual Studies has been the first to be specifically dedicated to them. The visual relationship between art and science, from the Renaissance to the present, is already being examined by Professor Kemp, not least through his regular column in the science journal Nature . Professor Kemp now plans to build on this approach as the foundation for postgraduate studies and research in Oxford, including the explosion of visual imagery in the modern era and the visual impact of new technologies.