Why does Dewey think aesthetics should be understood as an everyday experience instead of a separate discipline or artistic endeavor?
There is something about John Dewey’s writing that makes it really
hard to follow. For me, this article was harder to get through the
even Foucault (my old archrival). It’s hard to explain why his writing
is so hard to follow, but I find myself reading a paragraph and the realizing
I have no idea what he is talking about. It really is rather frustrating.
I have never had an article like this where I wasn’t able to come up with
some sort of an answer after 2 reads.
My take on the message that Dewy is trying to convey is that
art is more commonly viewed for its aesthetics, that is to say how pleasing
it is to the senses. Most of the time thought is not given to the
human experience that is behind the art. People think “oh my what
a pretty painting” as apposed to “I wonder what prompted the artist to
pain this.” It is like a minimalist painting; here you may have a
plain red canvas with a yellow piece of duct-tape running across it.
Generally speaking most viewers will look at the painting and sort of blow
it off as a joke, for what skill does it take to put a piece of tape on
a canvas? The point that Dewy is trying to stress is that we should
look behind the artwork, to what motivate the creator of the piece to make
it in the first place. In doing so art becomes closely connected
to the experiences of its creators. This, I believe gives things
a whole new dimension to the concept of viewing art.