I’ve been thinking a bit about Dewey’s phrase in the opening paragraph of Art as Experience, “Since the actual work of art is what the product does with and in experience…” (p. 1). What the product does, it communicates something, it reflects something back to the (inter)active observer? A few paragraphs later he writes “The sources of art in human experience will be learned by him who sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd; who notes the delight in a housewife in tending her plants…” (p. 3).
These statements got me thinking a bit about how art is a language, or how Dewey writes in D&E, how communication is like art. Instead of noticing how the ball-player affects the crowd, I’m tempted to look at how my words affect my students. Immediately I notice, as is the case in art, that what we are saying is always carried in how we are saying it. And now I’m pretty sure we could bring Wittgenstein into the discussion, through communicating meaning the individual perceptions involved in receiving and then interpreting communication.
It makes sense that Dewey stresses that art can only be understood after understanding the artist (and their greater culture, or Wittgenstein’s “form of life”), when he cites the Parthenon as his example it becomes clear that as we step away from the initial communication it becomes more and more difficult to perceive the artwork as expressed. It seems that we as organisms struggle in and with our environments with a different rhythm than the ancient Greeks, and to a lesser extent different rhythms than our students. As Thoreau wrote we march to different drummers. I’m finding it difficult to believe that any two people could actually understand each other at all, and then I’m reminded of the value of shared experience.
I’m struck as well by Dewey’s statement “Emotion is the conscious sign of a break… The discord is the occasion that induces reflection. Desire for restoration of the union converts mere emotion into interest in objects as conditions of realization of harmony. With the realization, material of reflection is incorporated into objects as their meaning.” (p. 14). It strikes me for the depth the phrase carries, emotions lead to reflection (and analytical thought) which lead to the creation of meaning, or ideas. And we perceive emotion qualitatively; in communication it could be that how something is said spurs the genesis of understanding what is said.
Jumping ahead a bit it’s the “humdrum; slackness of loose ends; submission to convention in practice and intellectual procedure.” (p. 42) which would kill communication (due to a lack of qualities and emotion) which would kill inspiration for reflection and understanding. Back to the beginning, the art that lies in education (and all experience) is found in what it does, and when it is involved in learning, the creation of ideas, it seems to begin with the qualities involved in communication. Teaching, like communication, is like art.
Nada, communicating something about that stick on our snow shoe around the field this afternoon
The most interesting book on Dewey's Art as Experience is by Tom Alexander. There's a optional essay by him in our PSU website. And then the other day in reading around in a book of essays edited by Tom Burke (the current expert on Dewey's logic) (or: as Dewey called it: "The Theory of Inquiry") I found another essay by Alexander. In it he stresses that the core notion in Dewey is of "the learner". So in many ways that gives us a picture of communications/transactions.... when on both ends of the transactions there's a desire (Plato) or interest in the pursuit of inquiry and subsequent learning.
ReplyDeleteIf that is the nature of my experience....my orientation toward my experiences with others....then I have purpose to which I can give form/shape/expression. And the communications/transactions begin to show similarities (also differences) from discussion of and about traditional art. Of course Dewey one-ups that kind of approach when he wrote: art as experience.
It's useful to question I think why he wrote: art as experience
rather than
art is experience
since there's a world of difference between is and as
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we could learn a lot about this from live creatures other than our own kind.... how they communicate
I’m finding it difficult to believe that any two people could actually understand each other at all, and then I’m reminded of the value of shared experience.
ReplyDeleteThere we go: this type of observation would be true to "human culture". Both are true.
Came across the book by a fellow grad student at Rutgers today....almost had the same dissertation committee as me. Victor Kestenbaum. The phenomenological sense of John Dewey. Haven't looked at it in ages....but it pretty much parallels Art as Experience.