"Art as Experience" is a major writing on aesthetics [the science which deduces from nature and taste the rules and principles of art] by John Dewey. In his work Dewey defines this theory:
Whenever there is a coalescence into an immediately enjoyed qualitative unity of meanings and values drawn from previous experience and present circumstances, life then takes on an aesthetic quality...an experience.
Art, then, is not merely the process by the artist; it involves both the artist and the active observer who encounter each other, their mental enviornments, and their culture at large. That is, art is not just a recording of human experience, but it is an involvement of human experience.
This involvement is known to anyone who has listened to a musical piece and felt moved emotionally or psychologically. It is known to anyone who has felt a thrill at observing the beauty of a painting. It is known to anyone who has become identified with a character in a book and been melancholic at the finish of a novel, for it has felt as though one has left a friend. Or, it is known, too, the viewer of a drama in which one feels a connection with an actor, enjoys watching that actor, has learned something from that actor's character. It is that simple: a connection of souls, a communication by the artist with the soul, that creative part of the observer.
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