\'Art as Experience\' is a book by John Dewey, first published in 1934, that presents a comprehensive theory of aesthetics and the nature of artistic experience. The book explores the significance and function of art, emphasizing that every work of art abstracts from the particular traits of objects expressed and that the artist's own being and experience determine what shall be expressed. Dewey's theory of art highlights the creative process, emotion, and the role of abstraction and expressiveness, which influenced the development of American art, particularly the Abstract Expressionist movement. The book is considered a key contribution to the field of aesthetics and has been influential in broadening the scope of aesthetic research, extending its reach from fine art to popular culture, the natural environment, and the everyday.
THE EXPRESSIVE OB,IECT material, are so purely tcchnic:cl that the c.:prcosi\cncss of the object is narrowly limited. But if the allied r;nterial of former experiences docs not directly blend with the qtdities of the poem or painting, they remain extraneous suggcstion3, not part of the expressiveness of the object itself.
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I have avoided the use of the word "association" because traditional psychology supposes that associated material and the immediate color or sound that evokes it remain separate from one another. It does not admit of the possibility of a fusion so complete as to incorporate both members in a single whole. This psychology holds that direct sensuous quality is one thing, and an idea or image which it calls out or suggests is another distinct mental item. The esthetic theory based on this psychology can not admit that the suggesting and the suggested may interpene trate and form a unity in which present sense quality confers vividness of realization while the material evoked supplies con tent and depth.
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The issue that is involved has a much greater import for the philosophy of esthetics than appears at first sight. The ques tion of the relation that exists between direct sensuous matter and that which is incorporated with it because of prior experiences, goes to the heart of the expressiveness of an object. Failure to see that what takes place is not external "association" but is internal and intrinsic integration has led to two opposed and equally false conceptions of the nature of expression. According to one theory, esthetic expressiveness belongs to the direct sen suous qualities, what is added by suggestion only rendering the object more interesting but not becoming a part of its esthetic being. The other theory takes the opposite tack, and imputes expressiveness wholly to associated material.
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The expressiveness of lines as mere lines is offered as proof that esthetic value belongs to sense qualities in and of themselves; their status may serve as a test of the theory. Differ ent kinds of lines, straight and curved, and among the straight the horizontal and vertical, and among curves those that are closed and those that droop and rise, have different immediate esthetic qualities. Of this fact there is no doubt. But the theory under consideration holds that their peculiar expressiveness can be explained without any reference beyond the immediate sensory 100
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