Open Eye: A magnificent salt cellar, but is it art?

When I set this work before the King, wrote the Italian Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini in his autobiography, "...he gasped in amazement and could not take his eyes off it." Crafted in cast gold, enriched with enamel and set on a base of ebony, Cellini's salt cellar made for Francis I was an astonishing creation. But was it art?

Cellini's own status as an artist was never in doubt but the new OU course Art And Its Histories demonstrates that the fluctuating reputations of artists through history have depended on a web of social and cultural issues. The tale of the salt cellar illustrates key themes: the status of the artist (and the craftsman), the definition of fine art and the role of patronage.

Officially launched at the Tate Gallery later this month, Art And Its Histories is already meeting the pent-up demand for such a course, says Course Chair Gill Perry: "It has doubled the OU student population for art history with more than 2,500 students. This is also one of the most exciting times for studying art history. It is an entry-level course which engages with the major contemporary themes of art history, drawing on other disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociology and philosophy."

With a course team of more than 20 authors it seeks to provide a range of approaches to visual culture. It challenges the powerful notion of the Western canon and explores works from India, Australia and West Africa, including textiles, photography, architecture and sculpture.

"This course is a superb example of an OU course team at its best," says Gill Perry. "All its highly visual elements of multimedia are the best of their kind."

Through six beautifully produced books co-published with Yale, the course provides a critical exploration of individual works of art, artistic groups and forms of artistic production.

Teaching materials include television programmes examining the Louvre, churches and mosques, Gauguin and Pont Aven, West African art and contemporary art from Australia. A programme on Bombay railway station shows how Gothic style was absorbed and filtered through Indian culture.

The changing status of the artist is examined though the achievements of Italian Renaissance artists such as Vasari and Pietro Lorenzetti and of Durer and Bruegel the Elder in northern Europe. Western classical ideas of the canon a reconsidered through the Parthenon marbles and the work of the 17th century artist Poussin.

History painting and portraiture, and the development of public monuments such as the Albert Memorial and the early years of the National Gallery and major provincial galleries suggest the cultural power of Western art and its apparent dominance. But the course shows how values and approaches to art can be culturally based and often drawn from a Western perspective.

What happens when art leaves its traditional sanctum, the museum? In an era of the blockbuster exhibition driven by commercial values how does acontemporary artist reach an audience? When museums in Britain seem inexorably linked to lottery or urban regeneration projects related to heritage, Art And Its Histories examines new ways of displaying art and increasing access.