Art as Experience

Art as Experience (1934) by American philosopher John Dewey is a landmark text in aesthetics and pragmatist philosophy. Dewey, one of the most influential figures in 20th-century philosophy and education, wrote extensively on democracy, psychology, and learning, and here he brings those concerns to bear on the nature and function of art. As in his earlier political work The Public and Its Problems (1927), Dewey argues that genuine democracy depends on active participation and shared experience. Art as Experience extends that argument into the cultural sphere, portraying art as a vital form of communication that binds communities together.

First published during the interwar period, the book belongs to the modernist era but resists elitist or purely formalist views of art. Instead, Dewey presents art as a mode of experience, rooted in the rhythms of human life and the dynamic interaction between individuals and their environment. Drawing on psychology, anthropology, and cultural history, he situates art not as a rarefied luxury but as a social and democratic force, continuous with everyday activity.

This guide refers to the digitized version of Art as Experience by John Dewey, which was published by Perigee in 1980.

Language Note: The source text uses the terms “Negro,” “Oriental,” and “primitive” to describe non-Western cultures and artworks. This study guide reproduces this language only in quotations to discuss Dewey’s historical and cultural context.

Summary

Art as Experience grew out of lectures Dewey delivered at Harvard in honor of William James. Across 14 chapters, Dewey develops his central idea that art should not be seen as a collection of rare objects housed in museums but as a form of experience that is continuous with the rhythms, tensions, and pleasures of ordinary living.

The opening chapters establish Dewey’s purpose. In the Preface, he acknowledges his intellectual debts and situates his work against a tradition of aesthetic theory that, he argues, has become overly detached from lived experience. Chapter 1, “The Live Creature,” critiques the way artworks have been reified into fixed objects of admiration. By treating art as timeless artifacts on pedestals, traditional theory obscures the conditions of their making and the roles they play in human life. Instead, Dewey insists that “the actual work of art is what the product does with and in experience” (3). He argues that aesthetic theory must begin not with canonical masterpieces but with the raw materials of everyday experience, where tensions and renewals mirror the rhythms that culminate in art.

Chapter 2 deepens this argument by addressing the false divisions that have long separated “higher” ideals from bodily and sensory life. Dewey critiques the division of culture into compartments—art, religion, politics, business—and the rigid separation of mind from body. He defines sense as the direct means by which the organism (or individual) participates in the world. Experience, then, is the ongoing interaction between the individual and their environment, which is enriched when surprise and resistance are transformed into meaningful participation. Art restores the unity of sense, need, impulse, and action, and Dewey contrasts this holistic approach with a tradition that has estranged art from both production and use.

Chapters 3 through 5 mark a turning point where Dewey clarifies his core concepts of experience, expression, and the expressive object. In Chapter 3, “Having an Experience,” he distinguishes scattered episodes from experiences that reach a satisfying close. Aesthetic experience exemplifies this structure—actions and their consequences are joined in perception, emotions unify the whole, and meaning emerges as doing and undergoing balance each other. Next, he describes how impulses become intentions when they encounter resistance and how expression arises when energy is shaped through a medium. Mere outbursts are not expression; rather, expression organizes feeling into form. Chapter 5 extends this idea by distinguishing representation from expression. Works of art reorganize familiar materials so that the audience experiences the world anew. For the perceiver, too, engagement is active; perception is an imaginative recreation of the work’s relationships rather than a passive labeling of objects.

Chapters 6 through 8 expand on the conditions that make art possible. Dewey stresses the importance of medium: Each art form has a unique language that cannot be translated without loss, and form is not a static structure but the dynamic organization of forces that carry experience to fulfillment. Chapter 7 develops this idea with a discussion of unity and variety, showing that form is achieved when diverse elements are integrated into an organic whole. Chapter 8 emphasizes rhythm as a basic principle of life and art. Human beings require both order and novelty; aesthetic rhythm arises from the organization of energies into patterned variation. This process mirrors life’s continual tensions and resolutions.

In later chapters, Dewey shifts from general principles to the diversity of the arts and the role of human imagination. He argues against the idea that only certain subjects are worthy of art. Modern innovations in painting, literature, and music have shown that any aspect of life can become art when approached with sincerity. Dewey argues that the arts are united by a pervasive qualitative unity—a background mood or felt whole—that fuses parts together and gives the works their depth. Chapter 10 surveys different media, showing how each shapes experience in unique ways while resisting rigid classification. Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature all exploit the energies of their media to create meaning, and literature most fully exemplifies art as communication. Chapter 11, “The Human Contribution,” emphasizes imagination as the pervasive quality that fuses sensation, thought, and emotion into new unities. Original art often encounters resistance, but imagination eventually reshapes both artist and audience, broadening human communion.

The final chapters provide Dewey’s culminating reflections on imagination, criticism, and art’s role in civilization. Chapter 12, “The Challenge to Philosophy,” asserts that all experience has imaginative quality, not just art. Aesthetic experience clarifies life’s tangled scenes by presenting their meanings as coherent wholes. Chapter 13 critiques judicial models of criticism that deliver verdicts of praise or blame. True criticism, Dewey argues, should re-educate perception and help audiences participate more fully in works of art. The last chapter situates art in its broadest cultural context. Dewey insists that art is not an ornament but a fundamental force of civilization, carrying forward the shared meanings that bind communities. From primitive rites and communal dances to modern literature and music, art has always served as both record and projection of collective life. In the modern era, industrial and scientific progress has disrupted this unity, but Dewey envisions a future where art will once again saturate daily life, fostering democracy, communication, and imaginative renewal.