Linotype Pilgrim
@symbo1ics.bsky.social
6.2K followers
6.5K following
38K posts
Reviews: "unhinged", "deluded", "incoherent" | Black Lives Matter | Vidas Indígenas Importam | Trans Lives Matter | politics, profanity, analog electronics, retrocomputing, coffee, typography | REMOVE DOUG FORD | Mastodon: https://timeloop.cafe/@symbo1ics
Posts
Media
Videos
Starter Packs
Pinned
![which fragments the work of the individual, which creates by committee, and which makes mincemeat of the creative process will, in the long run, diminish not only the product but the maker as well.
John Dewey, commenting on the relationship between fine art and useful or technological art, says: “That many, perhaps most, of the articles and utensils made at present for use are not genuinely esthetic happens, unfortunately, to be true. But it is true for reasons that are foreign to the relation of the ‘beautiful’ and ‘useful’ as such. Wherever conditions are such as to prevent the act of production from being an experience in which the whole creature is alive and in which he possesses his living through enjoyment, the product will lack something of being esthetic. No matter how useful it is for special and limited ends, it will not be useful in the ultimate degree—that of contributing directly and liberally to an expanding and enriched life.”[1]
The esthetic requirements to which Dewey refers are, it seems to me, exemplified in the work of the Shakers. Their religious beliefs provided the fertile soil in which beauty and utility could flourish. Their spiritual needs found expression in the design of fabrics, furniture, and utensils of great esthetic value. These products are a document of the simple life of the people, their asceticism, their restraint, their devotion to fine craftsmanship, and their feeling for proportion, space, and order.
Ideally, beauty and utility are mutually generative. In the past, rarely was beauty an end in itself. The magnificent stained glass windows of Chartres were no less utilitarian than was the Parthenon or the Pyramid of Cheops. The function of the exterior decoration of the great Gothic cathedrals was to invite entry; the rose windows inside provided the spiritual mood. Interpreted in the light of our own experiences, this philosophy still prevails.
[1. John Dewey
Art as Experience, p. 26
Etherial Things]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:osg2vzhifd2tjfsvfwua7scy/bafkreieduoxuybhnfvgz6eie6zkdgfldgllvqvbziifrklfq4xsfm4phyi@jpeg)
![Emphasising the Dewey quote:
John Dewey, commenting on the relationship between fine art and useful or technological art, says: “That many, perhaps most, of the articles and utensils made at present for use are not genuinely esthetic happens, unfortunately, to be true. But it is true for reasons that are foreign to the relation of the ‘beautiful’ and ‘useful’ as such. Wherever conditions are such as to prevent the act of production from being an experience in which the whole creature is alive and in which he possesses his living through enjoyment, the product will lack something of being esthetic. No matter how useful it is for special and limited ends, it will not be useful in the ultimate degree—that of contributing directly and liberally to an expanding and enriched life.”[1]
[1. John Dewey
Art as Experience, p. 26
Etherial Things]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:osg2vzhifd2tjfsvfwua7scy/bafkreihvikkmyzg5wipvsgpqb3dlwzp7cujphlpvwg4fatgolgcxikgflq@jpeg)
Reposted by Linotype Pilgrim
Reposted by Linotype Pilgrim
Reposted by Linotype Pilgrim
Reposted by Linotype Pilgrim
