Substance and Form

In this chapter, Dewey looks at how the form of a work of art relates to its meaning.

He discusses individuality in the making of art, as it is the self that "assimilates that material in a distinctive way to reissue it [as] a new object." The uniqueness of this experience is not only for the artist, but is part of the individual viewers' experiences as well, as each one contributes his own experience and interaction with the material of the art. A work of art "is recreated every time it is esthetically experienced," and universality of great works comes from their ability to continuously inspire new personal experiences, never being the same experience twice.

Form and meaning are intertwined by the fact that the art means what it does because of how it was made. It can't carry the same meaning if it has any other form, and even other "languages" of the arts can't express quite the same meaning. Dewey notes the distinction of subject and substance. The subject is some external object referred to by the art, while the substance is intrinsic to the art object. Further than subject, subject-matter includes the experiences relating to the subject with the viewer and artist bring to the work to give it meaning. If the artist began only with subject, "his work would almost surely suffer from artificiality. First comes subject-matter, then substance or matter of the work; finally the determination of topic or theme."

Dewey describes the problems of identification of a work by its subject, which is often used in titles, and the tendency to view art as a direct reminder of that subject. This is not acknowledging the form of the art, which is essential to its meaning as an art object.

For me, Dewey's point about how essential the artist's unique perspective is in providing subject-matter to the process of making art is important. I can't just give my dance a form that indicates emotions, it has to have those emotions in it, and they need to be part of the developmental process of the work so that substance and form are one. By beginning with my personal experiences (subject-matter rather than subject), and working that into the substance and matter of my work through processing, it can be shared to inspire associations with viewers' own experiences and subject matter as I'd hoped to do from the beginning.


Resource: Dewey, J. (1958). Art as Experience. Capricorn Books.