What a helpful articulation of Dewey’s ideas. I’ve wrestled with this book for some time now but this just put some wind in my sails. Are you still going to release a part 2 ? Looking forward to it.
Professor, I'm only two thirds through your video, but you've given me (already) a vocabulary and image of things that are so salient in my current experience. Your bringing forth of the meeting and intermingling of art and agent points me to vague traces of I and Thou, and your explanation of the distinction between expression and discharge enriches my understanding of a pattern I recognise when dealing with difficult emotions - suddenly I have words for what was formerly intuition. Thank you!
What a helpful articulation of Dewey’s ideas. I’ve wrestled with this book for some time now but this just put some wind in my sails. Are you still going to release a part 2 ? Looking forward to it.
Thank you for this. I was aware that Western art theory was heading in this direction at the beginning of the 20thC. Probably a bit earlier as I'm no expert. It seems to culminate in various art movements like for example Abstract Expessionism, which I find particularly engaging. This book by Dewey sounds really interesting. I'm right in the middle of a book on Chinese painting and poetry in the 11th and 12thC where, as long ago as that, their art theory was very much in this vein. Here are two quotes I read just hours before watching this: "In Zhang Zi's appraisal, painting what is true is not a matter of acheiving verisimilitude with the visual world, but of getting at what is authentic, what is pyschologically and emotionally true." "Gaining a new insight while viewing a painting allows the viewer to see familiar images with new eyes." I'm really captivated by the landscape painting of that era. It seems the painter didn't stand in front of a mountain or by a river to depict such a scene but he would roam the countryside, encounter many mountains and rivers and then express those encounters in a painting. Some of those that survive from that time are simply extraordinary and have a quality of something ineffable, almost spiritual. They make you want to enter the landscape and roam around within. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Thanks for writing! If you're interested in Abstract Expressionism, you should really read Chapter 5 of Dewey's book--he has a really insightful discussion of abstraction. --For that matter, you might also be interested in my book *Sites of Exposure*, (which you can find here: iupress.org/9780253029256/sites-of-exposure/)
@@JohnRusson123 Thanks John. I should have guessed you'd have written some splendid books. Just purchased Sites of Exposure from a local bookseller online. I live in the UK. I shall have to get the Dewey book too! I was fortunate enough to attend Abstract Expressonism, an exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London about five years ago. It simply blew me away.
Good talk John. Glad to see you’ve returned to posting videos recently. Your videos always take me back to your great lecturing at UofG. If you ever end up teaching Dewey’s Democracy and Education, post of videos for it!
