 Hello everybody and welcome back once again to great texts. We're still talking about John Dewey's artist experience and this week We're discussing chapter 13 criticism and perception Let me set up The problem that I think this chapter really addresses. It's what I think it's a crucial Question or problem for Dewey's aesthetic theory Namely, what can art criticism be and what is it for in Dewey's theory? And there are several aspects of Dewey's theory. I think that make it clear that this is an issue So one is the various criticisms The Dewey gives in prior chapters of naive or outmoded standards for art Another is the individuality of all works of art. He also You know just the very fact that for Dewey art is the work of art is an experience, right rather than an external thing Raises this problem of them. What is art criticism about? The untranslatability of any work of art from its medium to another medium including the medium of Scholarly prose or journalistic prose Raises the question then what is what is art criticism for? How can it how can it work, right? And that the experience of art is characterized in an essential way by a pervasive unifying quality that is unique To each work and experience of the work and which is in a sense is itself ineffable or untranslatable Right. All of these things I think give us Like they raise a question of how is it that Dewey's Theory of art can explain what what the art critic or the art scholar is doing when they're commenting on a piece of art on a work of art Okay, so Let's back up for a moment. I mean, what do we what do we mean when we talk about art criticism in general, right? And I think we're typically referring to to one of three types of things one is kind of journalistic criticism sort of commentary reviews Ratings, right that you one might find in a newspaper or or popular source a blog maybe in today's day and age For film, you know popular rating systems five stars two thumbs up kind of stuff is a sort of form of Journalistic criticism especially when there's an explanation for why Something is rated the way it is There's also a form of criticism. That's in internal to the art world, right? That's engaged in by artists and Curators collectors and other other people in those circles, right? And then there's scholarly criticism engaged in primarily by academics, right? People associated with academic institutions published in scholarly journals and books Now the boundaries between these three These three areas are porous And and not so sharp, but the there's sort of differences of emphasis Nevertheless, I think Dewey has some pretty negative Views about what tends to fall under the heading of our criticism and all of all of these sorts So so why is that? Well, let's look at what he describes it as sort of two forms of bad criticism Two forms. I think that are that are that form extremes, right? So on the one extreme you have what Dewey calls judicial criticism judicial criticism Sees the judgment of the art critic as a Essentially like that of the judge in a court case. It pronounces verdicts. That's the main goal on on the art In this case, it's good art. It's bad art, right? It's fine or it's not fine The judicial critic attempts to establish a sort of social Authority over art Judicial criticism fixates on technique. It tends to judge the present by the past. It's very beholden to Both recent and sometimes classic trends in art history Judicial criticism is inherently conservative, right? And as such Dewey thinks it tends to harm the progress of art And ends up looking foolish in retrospect and Dewey actually refers to a particular showing of avant-garde art At the Armory in 1913 as an example where the critics end up looking foolish in retrospect Okay, now the other type of criticism Dewey talks about it's sort of a reaction to just judicial criticism is what he calls impressionist criticism And only kind of loosely connected with the impressionist movement in art. The idea here is that the art critic just sort of writes down Unanalyzed impressions in response to the encounter with the work of art, you know, how it makes them feel and so forth, right? This ends up this ends up often being as Dewey says a medley of irrelevancies, right? It's actually to Dewey a kind of denial of judgment as such rather than a form of judgment For Dewey the impressions that one has the sort of feelings and perceptions that one has of art are the beginning of Judgments and criticism not the end, right? So that's that's crucial Now for Dewey judicial criticism does come from a kind of reasonable place You know as Dewey tells us repeatedly criticism is judgment and judgment of all involves in a certain sense evaluation Right? But the judicial critic goes too far setting up standards acting as if they're a kind of Arbiter and that's that's where Dewey raises a problem On the other hand impressionist criticism is also understandable as a response to the excesses of judicial criticism The issue in both cases for Dewey is that aesthetic judgment requires something else besides verdicts ratings rankings Um pronouncements those fixed standards, right? None of those things are appropriate Um, but also more than a chaos of subjective impressions, right? So, you know, although the sort of perception that one has of art is a crucial starting point for criticism And for art appreciation, it's not the end point for Dewey Um There's Dewey also is is concerned about the way in which art criticism often brings extraneous materials in And for him, this is a big no-no, right? Um, what do I mean by extraneous materials? Well, it might be economic considerations He gives us a kind of linenist take on art and uh, or ideological criticism Um, psychoanalytic materials historical biograph biographical excuse me biographical materials Sociological philosophical and so on right so all of these things are kind of extraneous materials And typically when they're brought into Art criticism they cause two kinds of problems on the one hand They leave to art his art art criticism. That's reductionistic Right that reduces the art to its sort of effect as as propaganda or The way in which it's produced under certain economic conditions or the philosophical ideas that are associated with it And all of that Dewey says is inappropriate Um, it also leads to the confusion of categories and values That come from mixing up different types of criticism that has different needs um It's not that Dewey thinks that there's no point to inquiries involving, um, you know These sorts of things. I mean understanding ancient Greek art and um, you know temples monuments sculptures Is helpful to understanding the history of ancient Greece Or to the philosopher trying to understand the writings of Plato or Aristotle and what they're reacting to Um, but historical judgment or or philosophical judgment Um, or or even scientific judgments are not aesthetic judgments They have a different focus and different values than art criticism So that's what Dewey sort of means when he talks about the confusion of categories Confusion of values. Um, they're they're up they're up to something different Okay, so if art criticism is up to something different then what is it up to What is art criticism supposed to do well Dewey tells us that the function of criticism is the re education of perception of works of art It is an auxiliary in the process a difficult process Of learning to see and hear Dewey here is saying basically look the purpose of criticism is to help us perceive better more deeply to appreciate Aspects of the work of art that we didn't appreciate if we're not used to seeing art of this kind Continuing on a little bit later in the paragraph. He says We lay hold of the full import of a work of art only as we go through in our own vital processes The processes the artist went through in producing the work It is the critic's privilege to share in the promotion of this active process His condemnation is that he so often arrests it So not only our does the critic educate the perceptions of Other viewers they actually help the viewer appreciate the the way in which The artist perceives the work when they're producing it right when they're judging it for themselves This this sort of statement of Dewey's of the purpose of criticism or the function of criticism Really reminds me of this classic line by William Wordsworth Right what we have loved Others will love And we will teach them how I just love that um that line And I think it really captures um You know something about education generally but uh, but here the educate the educational function of art criticism Now Dewey tells us that there are two main elements to critical judgment um In general and in in particular in the case of of art criticism So Dewey tells us on the one hand there's discrimination, right? What we often call analysis, right? It breaks the it breaks the work into its constituent parts and looks closely At how the how those parts are are uh executed, right? In the case of painting say it might look at particular um aspects of brush stroke color material And then the second is unification, right what we often call synthesis unification Uh discovers how the parts come together to create the whole work of art It tries to understand Um Sort of how all the pieces fit to produce the effect and the quality that they do produce, right? And it's through these elements of discrimination and unification analysis and synthesis That the critic helps the reader of criticism understand Um how the art work does its work how it works as an experience um It's also through the unification function of criticism that criticism itself becomes art Of its own particular of its own particular form um Now, uh, I want to leave with this this question I want to end with this question, um, which I also want to discuss further in class today for those of you Be joining us or on the discussion boards Uh tomorrow, um if you won't It's this question of can the critic judge the value of works of art, right? So Dewey's already, you know, clearly Distance himself from the judicial critic. So it's clear that whatever judgments Or evaluations the critic pronounces Right, they must be indifferent and kind from the judicial critic but um And and particularly in the sense that the judicial critic sets themselves Up as someone who pronounces verdicts with a certain social authority. So the the critic Acting appropriately doesn't do that for Dewey But does that mean they can't make any statement of good or bad better or worse? What the quality of this artwork is? um, and I think Dewey tells us that Doing so often leads to problems But the question is does it always lead to problems and I think Dewey does leave some Room here and I'd like to hear what you think about what room he does leave, you know what how is You know, not only can the critic judge the value. Okay. I've kind of given that away at least my opinion He can in some way, but how right? What's the right way to do it? In contrast to the judicial critic So those are the core things I wanted to talk about today It's a rich chapter with a lot going on As usual, so we didn't hit everything, but I think we'll have plenty of time in class And on the discussion board to take up further issues Let me know what you think of the chapter And this video feel free to leave me a comment as well. So Otherwise, I'll see you next time for the last chapter of the book art and civilization We'll wrap up our discussion of Dewey's artist experience. Um, and uh, I look forward to it. So until then Take care. See you later