Art as Experience

Art as experience, John Dewey

“Only when the past ceases to trouble and anticipations of the future are not perturbing is a being wholly united with his environment and therefore fully alive. Art celebrates with peculiar intensity the moments in which the past reënforces the present and in which the future is a quickening of what now is.”

Dewey, John. Art as Experience (p. 17). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

I did not get much sleep last night and struggled to get up this morning hence the late arrival to work and the lack of focus that followed. But, what I am looking at today is the book Art as Experience. I am through two chapters but my thoughts today are more about language than anything else, so far I have enjoyed it.

There was something that bothered me though, I don’t like how complicated the wording is in the book. Instead of saying simple phrases it’ll say something like what I posted above. I can guess at what it means and be somewhat accurate because I’ve read enough. However, I think art is confusing enough without all the big words and complex phrasing. 

I also think the business of art has permeated the scholastic part of art  because everyone is trying to create space for their brand of beliefs on the history of art. Their individual interpretations being the most important text on whichever subject they focus on. Yes, this is complaining, but these are my thoughts somewhat unfiltered, and lightly edited. 

Any way back to the big words of John Dewey, so far it's a good read and I’ve enjoyed it but these texts require work in order to understand them, and maybe that is a good thing? If I want to learn in this particular subject there is some work to be done. An additional amount of work that requires a more complicated vocabulary on what is already a difficult subject. I mean we are trying to interpret pictures as language. That in itself is difficult because all the factors that make art interesting also make it difficult to understand.

I had to look up a few words here and there so far, but ultimately his book is about presence and how the presence of the self in art is important. When we don’t have clarity of the self in the work and it is made in a way that doesn’t reflect the self, the meaning doesn’t mean so much and becomes more of an esthetic (a word he uses often) quality. Google didn’t even recognize the word esthetic. It means concerned with beauty and there are a couple more definitions, but why not just say beautiful?

 I digress… sort of, a lot of people discuss this topic. I've read a few reasons, but for the sake of a simple response I’ll just say I prefer the simple response, and I also appreciate their attempt at complexity for whatever reason I am unsure of. It has made my life more difficult and I challenge them back. I wonder what John Dewey's book would be like if he wrote the most basic variation of what he was trying to say. 

For Example the passage at the top, if simplified, would read: “When someone is present they connect to the world around them with more awareness.” 

I don’t know what the F%$# the guy is trying to say in the second part… 

wait after a couple reads…

 “Art focuses on the present”... ooohhhh, Wow! what a f$%$#$g genius.(eye-roll)

I get it’s the culture and I signed up for it but some days its maddening! Maddening I tell you!