Art as Experience

Dewey extends his discussion of form by shifting from what form is to how form develops in experience. Whereas philosophy often treats “relation” as a static, logical connection, Dewey insists that in art, relations are dynamic interactions—pushes, pulls, harmonies, and resistances—that actively shape perception. Form is not imposed from outside; it emerges from the reciprocal adaptation of parts into a unified whole. 

Unlike mere utility, which satisfies fixed ends, the aesthetic whole satisfies life itself by integrating many purposes without being bound by them in advance. Dewey cites Max Eastman’s example of looking at the New York City skyline from a ferry: The aesthetic viewer will perceive it as a related ensemble rather than a set of landmarks or data. Similarly, Matisse describes painting as balancing successive colors so they enhance rather than cancel one another. In such cases, perception completes itself only when parts converge into a harmonious whole. Form, then, characterizes genuine experience; art refines and concentrates this tendency into more deliberate and complete expression.

Formal conditions include continuity, culmination, conservation of what has gone before, tension, and anticipation of resolution. Resistance is crucial, as without obstacles to overcome, experience would rush forward mechanically without development. Both artist and audience confront problems of resistance that must be worked through for an experience to culminate fully. True creation involves openness to discovery, not rigid adherence to a preconceived end. The “felicitous quality” of art arises from the unanticipated turns that preserve freshness and spontaneity.

Dewey says technique, which is often mistaken for form, is relative and secondary. Skill, economy, costliness, or elegance contribute to form only when they serve the unified progression of experience. Otherwise, they degenerate into virtuosity or ornament. Historically, major shifts in artistic technique arise not from craft alone but from new demands of experience—such as the Renaissance movement’s shift toward three-dimensional perspective or the Venetian emphasis on color. At its best, technique emerges experimentally as artists response to new cultural materials, revealing their adventurous engagement with life rather than adherence to convention.

For Dewey, rhythm provides the foundation of form. Rhythm is the ordered variation of energies—the alternation of tension and release—and it underlies both nature and art. It is in the cycles of day and night, seasons, and human bodily processes, and it is also the basis of the gestures of dance and cadences of poetry. Rhythm constitutes the dynamic balance of accumulation and release, and it structures aesthetic experience. Art thus grows out of humanity’s intimate participation in natural rhythms, transforming them into expressive order. Naturalism, in this context, does not mean mere imitation of nature but heightened sensitivity to the rhythms of existence. Genuine naturalism resists convention and academicism, instead discovering new forms of order in lived experience. Works like Wordsworth’s poetry show how true naturalism discovers new forms of vitality, whereas realism mechanically reproduces details. Therefore, naturalism embodies the subtle rhythms of perception and relation.

Dewey concludes that unity in variety, which is a classic formula for beauty, must be understood dynamically. Aesthetic form arises when doing and undergoing are fused into rhythmic, cumulative experience, yielding objects that both satisfy and renew life.

Dewey now focuses on energy as the core of aesthetic experience. He distinguishes the physical art work—like a painting, poem, or song—from  the living work of art, which exists only in active perception. Thus, the work of art is not a static object but the interaction of structured materials with the energies of perception that carry an experience to fulfillment. Rhythm, which Dewey previously identified as a condition of form, becomes central: It is not external regularity but the dynamic ordering of variations that sustain and develop an experience.

He critiques the “tick-tock” theory of rhythm that equates it with mechanical repetition, noting that true rhythm depends on variation, tension, and cumulative progression. Just as accomplished singers “take liberties” with exact pitch, art achieves vitality through deviation within order. Repetition in art functions not as identical recurrence but as the recurrence of relationships in new contexts, with each carrying the experience forward. He uses examples from Wordsworth’s The Prelude and from music to show how variation and cumulative conservation distinguish living rhythm from monotony.

Rhythm, Dewey argues, is universal, underlying both natural processes and all the arts. From bodily cycles and natural seasons to music, poetry, architecture, and painting, rhythm organizes energy into balance and growth. He says the “tom-tom” conception of primitive rhythm as mere repetition is similarly mistaken. Even in dance and ritual, rhythm is developmental, working toward heightened intensity and release. Genuine art requires both order and novelty; mechanical ease or excessive uniformity produces works that quickly exhaust themselves, while living variation sustains renewed perception.

Dewey uses examples to illustrate how rhythm organizes energy: Renoir’s continual variation in line and color creates energy, while Whistler’s broad uniform stretches produce calm; similarly, in poetry and music, rhythmic balance can be achieved through pauses and intervals. Dewey emphasizes that rhythm and symmetry cannot be separated. Symmetry is rhythm in perceived balance, while rhythm is symmetry felt as movement. Both are functions of dynamic equilibrium among opposing energies.

He extends this argument to criticize the conventional division of the arts into “spatial” (architecture, sculpture, painting) and “temporal” (music, literature). Perception is temporal, unfolding through coordinated rhythms of sensation and motor response, so all arts involve both time and space. Modern physics’ discovery of space-time confirms what artists have always enacted in practice. Music exemplifies this principle. Tones are what they are only by relation to what has gone before and what is anticipated, just as chords and harmonies parallel the balances of visual art.

Dewey places energy at the center of aesthetic experience. Art clarifies and intensifies the energies of life by selecting, organizing, and releasing those features that make experience worth having. Through rhythm and balance, art sets free the congenial forces of nature and human interaction, producing ideal experiences in which individual and universal are reconciled. The emotion that results is “impersonal” because it belongs to the shared world of perception rather than to private feeling. In this sense, art is the imaginative expression of energy, offering consummated experiences that renew people’s sense of participation in the world.