Free Interview Resources
Free practice questions, preparation advice, and expert insights for History of Art interviews at Cambridge.
Real History of Art interview questions in the style Cambridge asks. Try answering each one aloud before you reveal the hint.
You are shown an unfamiliar painting. What do you notice first, and what might that suggest about the artist’s choices?
Close Looking & Visual Analysis
Look at the handling of light, scale and composition in this image. What can you infer before using contextual knowledge?
Close Looking & Visual Analysis
Choose one detail in this object and explain how it changes your reading of the whole work.
Close Looking & Visual Analysis
How does the material or surface of this object affect the way you understand its purpose?
Close Looking & Visual Analysis
Can a work of art be understood apart from its patron, maker or original setting?
Interpretive Discussion
Supervision-style interviews with problem-solving and academic discussion, often with two interviewers.
Cambridge interviews usually happen at your first-choice college. Most applicants have two interviews, with some subjects requiring a third at the pooled college. Cambridge interviews tend to involve two interviewers and may include a written assessment or pre-interview task sent on the day.
Interview Invitation
Late Nov
Arrival to Interview
Early Dec
Technical Question
Mid Dec
Decision
Early Jan
Interview Invitation
Late Nov
Arrival to Interview
Early Dec
Technical Question
Mid Dec
Decision
Early Jan
What makes an image persuasive?
Is style a useful way of organising art history?
When can an artwork’s visual impact matter more than its documented context?
What kinds of evidence would you use to move from description to interpretation?
How would you test a claim that an object was made for private devotion rather than public display?
When might material evidence challenge a written source?
What evidence would help you decide whether a visual similarity is influence, copying or coincidence?
How would your interpretation change if this object were designed for a church, a home, or a museum?
If the same image appeared as a print rather than a painting, what would change about its audience and meaning?
How might the reading of this object change if it were displayed beside works from a different period or place?
You wrote about a particular artwork or exhibition in your personal statement. What did you find hardest to interpret?
Which object or text in your application would you now approach differently, and why?
Tell us about one argument in your submitted written work that you would now qualify.
How should museums handle objects acquired under colonial conditions?
Should damaged artworks be restored to look complete, or should their damage remain visible?
Who should decide how a culturally significant object is displayed?
Should a museum label foreground uncertainty when an object’s maker, date or purpose is disputed?
8–10 weeks
6 weeks
4 weeks
2 weeks
Final week
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Practice with a Cambridge History of Art graduate who's been through it.
Book Mock Interview →Further Reading
by University of Cambridge Department of History of Art
Starting point for departmental events, research themes and course context.
by Smarthistory
Practical vocabulary for describing form, composition, colour, space and material.
by Khan Academy
Overview of art-historical methods and evidence types.
by The Fitzwilliam Museum
Object-based practice using works in a Cambridge collection.
by University of Cambridge
Useful for thinking about display, domestic space, collection history and modern/contemporary art.