Art as Experience / Dewey By: Gabriel

Moreno
In his Art as Experience, John Dewey argues that if we are to recover a
sense of the significance of an aesthetically rich life, we must consider the
relationship between the aesthetic and experience itself. What is Dewey’s
description of experience? How does his account contribute to our
understanding of artistic creation and aesthetic experience?

Our everyday lives are filled with all kinds of interactions from minor to
major occurrences. For John Dewey we as humans have alienated ourselves
from an aesthetically rich life. We do not cherish or pay attention to the
experiences we live. “This task is to restore continuity that are works of art
and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings that are universally
recognized to constitute experience” (Dewey 525). Dewey implies that there
is a break or hole between us and the experience that we should be
recognizing. The task specifically means we must as one, each and every
human being have their own experience with art. A “fresh insight” as Dewey
calls it is blocked by the already made critiques, “unquestioned admiration,”
on different art forms (Dewey 526). We must break away from these already
made critiques to make our own unique experience with the art form. The
person must create an admiration and appreciation for the art form using our
senses depending on which type of art form we use for example. In “The Live
Creature” a flower is used as an example for a person that knows nothing
about flowers but can still say they smell nice or have good color without
knowing any thing about the growth, soil, food, or any other type of
knowledge that has to do with flowers. But the person who decides to look
and study further into how flowers work will gain a better understanding and
therefore create a greater experience through greater appreciation and
admiration. One can basically live a better experience than others. This
“personal enjoyment” in the sense that we live our own experiences takes
place in a plethora of environments. Another good example would be a
wedding where all kinds of culinary art forms are made available to its
guests. We all have our different tastes, likes, and dislikes. More senses are
used than in the flower example. Taste, touch, smell, and sight are used to
create our own experience with the culinary art forms served at the wedding.
We do not need to be the artist, the chef to realize the food tastes or smells
good but we gain a greater admiration and appreciation if we speak to the
chef or study more into the recipe itself of the specific food in observation.

Dewey goes deeper into the understanding of the esthetic by telling us

we “must begin with it in the raw” (Dewey 527). He goes on to describe
different situations involving the different senses of man and his/her actions
and to question the purpose/reasoning behind it. A good example is a wood
carver and the person purchasing a wooden sculpture. The wood carver will
answer how he enjoys making art out of wood, maybe a bear sculpture, while
the purchaser’s answer for purpose is just to decorate his home. The
purchaser has no true appreciation for the art form the carver creates. For
the purchaser the very break in the continuity of art and experience occurs.
The carver finds himself in appreciation and admiration of sorts in his
creation and everything that was involved in making that creation, the tools,
the wood, and the carver himself (his hands and imagination to go into
deeper detail). The very connection we seek to make is made between artist
and work. Once the carver finishes the bear sculpture the purchaser can fix
the break in the continuity by acknowledging all that was put into the work.
It is at this point the purchaser is not necessarily the purchaser anymore but
a spectator like us. He has the choice to have a genuine experience by using
the senses to create a “fresh insight” (Dewey 526).

The example with the wood carver is an occurrence that can happen in
the present, that is the wood carver can create a wooden sculpture and you
take it home with appreciation for the art form and admiration for the carver.
But what about art forms from other centuries? Such things as “domestic
utensils, furnishings of tent and house, rugs, mats, jars, pots, bows, spears,”
things used as display in the home, for eating, and for hunting. (Dewey 529)
At one point these items were admired for there use in the human
experience. What has become of them? For Dewey and us all of these things
can be found on “pedestals” in museums (Dewey 528). Dewey then explains
how art from past centuries was stolen during invasions just so a country
could show off. Such examples as Napoleon’s spoils which are displayed in
the Louvre (Dewey 530). With the growth of capitalism the rich too have
been able to buy a lot of the art to surround themselves with, which can
viewed another form of showing off. Do the museums, countries, and the rich
have right to the art which they do not appreciate and/or admire? I answer
no to this for the very reason that their reasoning is wrong. The simple idea
of showing off alone proves that there is no appreciation for the art forms
and to top it off the very idea to seek wealth from the art is too in bad taste.
The better the art in the museum the more grants and such will occur for the
museum while for the capitalist collector seeks for his art to go up in stock.
And such the experience Dewey would want for the museum and collector
fails. Dewey continues to criticize capitalism for its mass production of art
forms for example a poster of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Even though the
entire world will be able to see the copy it is not the experience Dewey wants
the viewer to have. “The mobility of trade and of populations, due to the
economic system, has weakened or destroyed the connection between works
of art and the genius loci of which they were once the natural expression”
(Dewey 531). What exactly is the natural expression in terms of the nature of
an experience?

For Dewey we must go back to the senses of man and the environment in
which he/she lives in (Dewey 535). “The first great consideration is that life
goes on in an environment;” (Dewey 535). So we have the environment
which is a broad term. For Dewey it is about the environment but more
specific, “not merely in it but because of it, through the interaction with it”
(Dewey 535). Dewey uses the example of a dog and owner. The very
interaction and environment shared is an experience. Dewey understands
though that “life continues and if in continuing it expands, there is an
overcoming of factors of opposition and conflict;” (Dewey 536). This world is
not perfect and many experiences will not be joyful. A sort of alienation is
created at times when things are not so perfect but “only when an organism
shares in the ordered relations of its environment does it secure the stability
essential to living. And when the participation comes after a phase of
disruption and conflict, it bears within itself the germs of a consummation
akin to the esthetic” (Dewey 536). One must recover from any conflict to
gain the necessary understanding of an experience. For Dewey “emotion is
the conscious sign of a break” (Dewey 536). Meaning that is when you learn
to control or recover from the emotion during conflict that you will be able to
live on and continue with positive experiences. Recovery can involve such
things as reflection from the conflict. Many artists will go through phases of
conflict with their art form yet well experienced artists will use the very
“resistance and tension” as a cultivation “not for their own sake but because
of there potentialities” (Dewey 536). One must learn to control the conflicts
to bring out a true “experience that is unified and total” (Dewey 537).

In “Having an Experience,” Dewey just reiterates what is already

understood as an experience. Many occurrences throughout ones life where
we have “real experiences” like a good example used in the text is a meal in
Paris where one is driven to say “that was an experience” (Dewey 556).
There is always that unity without any breaks is when we have a real and
true experience. The experience flows in a way and we know because we live
it. “An experience has a unity that gives it its name, that meal…” (Dewey
556). To have many experiences in life each has end at some point. Only
when they “have done their proper work” can we say we have completed the
experience (Dewey 560).