An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art

the product as art becomes subject to some doubt. The result of wholly

provocative or assertational intentions swerves toward tract, screed, or

propaganda, and away from art. As Dewey puts it,“doing or making is artis-

tic,”as opposed to exclusively theoretical, symbolic, communicative, political,

and so forth,“when the perceived result is of such a nature thatitsqualitiesas

perceivedhave controlled the question of production.”^34 Practitioners in the

studio and workshopdopay special attention to formal elements and their

interrelationships. They typically monitor and correct their production in

order to achieve an absorptive coherence of elements. Likewise, critics typic-

ally attend to the formal details of the presence or absence of such an achieve-

ment in a work. While it is true that all objects have form, attention to

singular arrangements of elements that invite and sustain absorptive engage-

ment is central to the artistic enterprise. In Dewey’sphrasing,

Objects of industrial art have form–that adapted to special uses. These objects

take on aesthetic form, whether they are rugs, urns, or baskets, when the

material is so arranged and adapted that it seems immediately the enrichment

of the immediate experience of the one whose aesthetic perception is directed

to it...Where the form is liberated from limitation to a specialized end and

serves also the purposes of an immediate and vital experience, the form is

aesthetic and not merely useful.^35

General versus individual form

Form, pattern, and arrangement can be thought of at two distinct levels.

General formis an arrangement or manner of composition that might be

shared by a number of separate works. Examples include: sonata form; the

Petrarchan sonnet form; organization according to the classic three unities of

time, place, and action in drama; and the triangular arrangement of multiple

figures in a history or story painting. In each case, the maker will be aware of

working within the parameters of an established formal genre in a medium.

It is often useful for students to practice within such formal genres, and

experimentation within such general forms, carried out in relation to subject

matters and manipulations of elements, may offer possibilities for new

absorptive and expressive achievement.

(^34) Dewey,Art as Experience, p. 48. (^35) Ibid., p. 116.
62 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art