Art as Experience [Paperback]

Johy Dewey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 1980

Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Dewey (1859-1952), philosopher, psychologist, and educator, is widely credited as the most influential thinker on education in the twentieth century. He taught philosophy at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago , and Columbia University. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade (March 6, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399500251
• ISBN-13: 978-0399500251
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Theorizing On Art, May 4, 2003

By 

Zettel "Matt" (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art as Experience (Paperback)

As a reviewer below stated, this is a very interesting book that treats art as a means of recapturing the experience of life and trasmitting that experience to the audience. He captures a number of concepts established earlier by Leo Tolstoy in his "What is Art?" and delves deeper into them, expounding on their more practical and less esoteric uses.

Dewey, however, certainly earns his title as a pragmatist. His wording is complicated and, at times, careful. It is difficult to pin specific sayings or doctrines to him. However, once the task is completed, he has a great deal of important things to say about art and artistic experience.

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the great books on art theory., April 6, 2000

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art as Experience (Paperback)

Although somewhat dated in that what Dewey novelly stated long ago, we now accept as obvious, this is a great book to gain an understanding of art both as a producer and as a spectator.

The central theme is that life is an experience, and that the goal of art is to recapture that experience. Hence, a painting of a flower is only valuable in the way that it captures the essence of a flower, or the experience of viewing a flower. The viewing of a painting must also provide some of the experience of making that painting ( its process ).

If you can manage to finish the book ( the style is a bit archaic ), the experience is worth the effort.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental book on esthetics, June 7, 2008

By 

Patrick Singleton "opinionated photographer" (Newton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Art as Experience (Mass Market Paperback)

Dewey discusses making art and viewing art are not unique activities -- that discipline, engagement and commitment are basic to art in the same way they are basic to other work.

The book undermines the notion that Art is somehow arcane and academic. It's not, the book suggests. It takes work to make art, it takes work to appreciate it, but it is a democratic sort of work, and good art stands up, even when it is not cosseted in museums or galleries.