In Art as Experience, Dewey brings together the deep and enduring connection between art and human experience. Art is understood not as a commodity or solitary object but as an intensely meaningful expression and transfiguration of life. At the core of his argument, Dewey underscores the necessity of approaching art’s creation and interpretation as a continuous process – a paradigm that has laid the theoretical foundation for my practice as an artist, children’s curator and PhD researcher.
Like Charles Darwin, Dewey defines experience as the interaction between a being and its exterior world. The connection between art and experience is theorised as both an expression of the human who created it and within the personal experience of the viewer. The first resulting from an “impulsion” to create an outward expression of one’s internal construct through the selection and arrangement of materials, the latter being a consequence of individual interpretation. Both these perceptions are assemblages within one’s mind and are therefore always individually constructed.
An authentic aesthetic experience necessitates continuous interaction between a being and art. Such a connection catalyses the metamorphosis of both entities through the merging of things – physical, social, emotional, sensual, intellectual and practical – that were previously external to one another. From this, a being’s subjective interpretation of its environment becomes the stimulus for intrinsic transformation.
Art as Experience is regarded as one of the most significant contributions to aesthetic theory. The principles, concepts and philosophies presented in the text have influenced a myriad of theorists such as Elliot Eisner, Maxine Greene and Philip W. Jackson. The text’s modern-day legacy continues through the persistent contribution that art, creativity and aesthetics make to education.
Funding
This research is supported by the University of Nottingham, Brisbane City Council, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and the Graduate Women of Queensland Fellowship Fund.
School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
[email protected] @louisa_penfold
© 2017 Louisa Penfold
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2016.1264206