Art as Experience

Dewey is the inspiration behind my PhD so as an owner of his collected works in print and electronic form I can offer a few words on Art as Experience. The 1934 first edition is a handsome object in itself. Written by a mature Dewey, this book is about art in its broadest sense, and experience in its particular sense as our primary way of engaging the world. It is a book about the wonder of experiencing life in context. And that is what makes it as relevant today as it was in 1934 - both eras are marked by significant socio-cultural development, received at such a pace it is hard to keep pace or pause to reflect. When was the last time you stopped think about the meaning of experiences in your life? Have you ever thought of yourself and the people near you as the shape and form of expression in this world? This book by Dewey will take you to many places well worth travelling to in print and in person. Read it alongside Wayne Booth's 'Writing as Thinking: Thinking as Writing' The Harper and Row Rhetoric: Writing as Thinking, Thinking as Writing and let Dewey, through his journey with Vernon Lee's ideas on page 101-102, in the chapter entitled 'The Expressive Object' inspire you to explore the rich writing of Violet Paget (aka Vernon Lee, The Beautiful). The high point of the book is the discussion of empathy. Here is Dewey quoting Lee, which is in tune with the sense Dewey is talking about in his book The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics (Classic Reprint): "The various and variously combined dramas enacted by the lines and curves and angles take place not in the marble or pigment embodying the contemplated shapes, but solely in ourselves..."

Dewey discusses making art and viewing art are not unique activities -- that discipline, engagement and commitment are basic to art in the same way they are basic to other work. The book undermines the notion that Art is somehow arcane and academic. It's not, the book suggests. It takes work to make art, it takes work to appreciate it, but it is a democratic sort of work, and good art stands up, even when it is not cosseted in museums or galleries.

As a reviewer below stated, this is a very interesting book that treats art as a means of recapturing the experience of life and trasmitting that experience to the audience. He captures a number of concepts established earlier by Leo Tolstoy in his "What is Art?" and delves deeper into them, expounding on their more practical and less esoteric uses. Dewey, however, certainly earns his title as a pragmatist. His wording is complicated and, at times, careful. It is difficult to pin specific sayings or doctrines to him. However, once the task is completed, he has a great deal of important things to say about art and artistic experience.

if you are an artist this book will blow your mind.it is pretty theoretical, but if you can get through the first 20 pages.. and get into his vibe.. it's BEAUTIFUL.. (yum).This is probably the most important book i've ever read. You trust katie, you! you buy! you buy!!

Although somewhat dated in that what Dewey novelly stated long ago, we now accept as obvious, this is a great book to gain an understanding of art both as a producer and as a spectator.The central theme is that life is an experience, and that the goal of art is to recapture that experience. Hence, a painting of a flower is only valuable in the way that it captures the essence of a flower, or the experience of viewing a flower. The viewing of a painting must also provide some of the experience of making that painting ( its process ).If you can manage to finish the book ( the style is a bit archaic ), the experience is worth the effort.