Why does art involve experience?
In my opinion, the concept of “art involves experience” implies that art is an
avenue to express one’s feelings, emotions, or ideas which came from one’s
experiences. Thus, art expresses the experiences of an artist. These experiences
are unique to a person and it is something that presses an artist to produce art.
For instance, when somebody is broken-hearted, it becomes easy for him/her to
create a sad poem/song because he/she has this painful experience of love. It
would be hard for one to create art without experiences because you cannot
make something that you do not even know from the start or you cannot
effectively communicate something you do not even undergo. Hence, every art
that is created or performed is inspired from something people already
experienced or discovered. Howbeit, John Dewey stated the object alone created
by the artist is not art unless revealed to others. Thus, an artist’s work must be
something that is shared with others and experienced by others. However, most
of the time, the audience does not fully grasp the emotions or ideas of the artist
in his/her artwork merely because we are different human beings with different
experiences. So, we interpret an artist's works based on our perceptions and
experiences which is distinct from that of the artist and others. Like what it is
when we talk about love and all people know what it is to love. It may be a love
for a significant other, parents, children, friends, or pets. Each relationship holds a
different kind of love, but also, each person feels this love in a slightly different
way. Yet, we all collectively have a subtle and basic understanding when someone
says he or she is in love because of our conveyed knowledge and experience of
love. And that is the same with art which somewhat connects us through our
shared experiences.
