¶ … Art as Experience" by John Dewey
The Function of Aesthetics in John Dewey's "Art as Experience"
In the book, "Art as Experience," author John Dewey offers an alternative method through which aesthetic or esthetic theory can be discussed and thoroughly explained. In the midst of art studies dealing with the theme "art for art's sake," Dewey argues in his book how a gradual deviation from this popular maxim will provide art theorists, critics, and even artists themselves create a proper perspective in which works of art can be viewed and discussed for what they really are -- that is, products and artifacts of human culture.
Indeed, art as a functional object for human culture becomes the central theme of the "Art as Experience." The author puts much emphasis on the distinction between fine art that is 'mystified' and functional: the former is the product of the humanity's putting a large premium on the object rather than experience, while the latter puts experience as the primary factor towards its creation and the objects as a means only to an end (which, ultimately, is human expression). Art becomes a human product that is autonomous to human society, an effect of what Dewey explicates as a 'separation' "from both conditions of origin and operation in experience, a wall is built around them that renders almost opaque...
Art is remitted to a separate realm, where it is cut off from that association with the materials and aims of every other form of human effort, undergoing, and achievement" (3).
The preceding passage becomes the primary message that the book puts forth. In some way, Dewey offers a critical point-of-view about the process of mystification of works of art, in the same manner that critical theorist John Berger has elucidated on the process of mystification that becomes an inevitable result of the prevalence of a capitalist economic system. In Berger's thesis, works of art are elevated to a status that goes beyond human understanding and experience, a product of the process of mystification. This process makes works of art available only to those who are able to 'understand' and possess or own these man-made objects and artifacts, thus rendering it unavailable and not understandable to the very people in which this work of art was based upon and created for.
This should not be the case, the book argues. As each chapter progresses, the author develops his argument about how art is initially and primarily functional rather than pure aesthetics. For him, "[a]rt denotes a process of doing or making," and works of art are but a manifestation of human experience from a particular period in time. He further defines…
