On Feb. 13, the Art History Club had its second meeting of the year in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Juniors and co-presidents Emma Kolah and Emily He founded the club at the beginning of the second semester.

“We were talking about how there isn’t an AP Art History class at Bellaire,” Kolah said. “But a lot of the topics [in the AP class] are kind of boring, so we wanted to learn about the art history that we personally like, and that people around us find interesting.”

Even before starting this club, Kolah had a strong interest in history itself.

“I love history, so I think it’s really interesting to see the more emotional side of history and how that’s translating into art,” Kolah said.

Before each meeting, the officers each pick a topic within the chosen era and “dives into it.”

The officers, wanting to create a space where people could learn what they wanted to, with “no strings attached,” also learn as they go along.

“We don’t know everything about art history,” Kolah said. “We’re kind of learning as we make our presentations.”

While founding this club, the officer team “fell into place” including junior, historian and co-social media manager Joshua Manio.

“I wanted to be an officer in the Art History Club because I think a lot of how we express ourselves today can be attributed to certain periods in art history,” Manio said.

He specifically wanted his social media and historian role because of who he is as a person.

“Being someone who tries to maximize whatever reign of freedom that I’m given in terms of expression, it just felt natural for myself to gravitate towards this club,” Manio said. “I also felt like running the Instagram account for this club would be fun because I knew that I didn’t want to take the conventional way of posting.”

Manio’s biggest goal with this club is to spread “awareness when it comes to digesting art” since he said it can tend to be intimidating without a set basis.

“As cliche as it sounds, the beauty that comes in absorbing art is in its almost baseless interpretation,” Manio said. “I think that understanding why certain styles of art came to be and the influences behind it allow for much more comprehensive thought in terms of viewing art.”

When it came to their first and second meetings, the officers didn’t expect the turnout there was.

“It was a good turnout for our first meeting,” Kolah said. “I think that club jamboree helped a lot with that because people saw our stand and they were like ‘this is really interesting.’”

One of the members they reached with their promotion was junior Ryan Fahed.

“[Art history] is an interest that I didn’t know I had,” Fahed said. “It’s a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.”

Even though Fahed did not know much about art history before joining this club, he still learned a lot from the meetings that he attended.

“In the most recent meeting, [Art History Club officers] went over the Rococo period, and I thought it was really interesting because they cover not just the art itself but also the time period and context of what happens, the fashion, the significance of the art and [more than just how the art looks],” Fahed said.

Because Fahed is more interested in the history side of art history, he has specific regions that he is excited for the club to cover.

“I am a big fan of the Far East [China and Japan],” Fahed said. “We don’t talk about them a lot, so I’d love to see them go over that.”

The Art History Club meets every other Tuesday in Room 3713. To learn more about the club, visit its Instagram @bhs.arthistory, or to get more involved, join its Remind @arthistbhs.