A Master of Fine Arts (MFA, M.F.A.) is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree (BFA), although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts. Coursework is primarily of an applied or performing nature with the program often culminating in a major work or performance.
Master of Fine Arts programs have generally required a bachelor's degree prior to admission, but many do not require that the undergraduate major be the same as the MFA field of study. The most important admissions requirement has often been a sample portfolio or a performance audition.
The Master of Fine Arts differs from the Master of Arts in that the MFA, while an academic program, centers around practice in the particular field, whereas programs leading to the MA usually center on the scholarly, academic, or critical study of the field.
In the United States, a Master of Fine Arts is seen as a terminal degree, meaning that it is considered to be the highest degree in its field. In the interest of extending the connection between creative production and continued academic research, however, some universities have established competing Ph.D programs in fields such as creative writing, visual arts, and theater.
Famous quotes containing the words fine arts, master of, master, fine and/or arts:
“The division between the useful arts and the fine arts must not be understood in too absolute a manner. In the humblest work of the craftsmen, if art is there, there is a concern for beauty, through a kind of indirect repercussion that the requirements of the creativity of the spirit exercise upon the production of an object to serve human needs.”
—Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)
“A penniless man who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so begins for us the cruelest trouble of all.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Your master Robin Hood lies dead,
Therefore sigh as you sing.
Here lie his primer and his beads,
His bent bow and his arrows keen,
His good sword and his holy cross:”
—Anthony Munday (1553–1633)
“Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Women hock their jewels and their husbands’ insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)