“Does the Deed that Breeds the Emotion”: An Interpretation on John Dewey’s Aesthetic Theory of Expression

Dewey refuses to accept the traditional aesthetic theory of expression, and opposes seeking the mystery of artistic expression exclusively in the subjective spiritual world. Instead, he turns his attention to the reality of nature and human beings. Based on the long-standing and dynamic interactions between human beings as " the live creature” and nature, Dewey puts forward his aesthetic theory of expression with an existential orientation. He emphasizes that artistic expression is first of all an action of human beings in the environment, i.e., a positive response to the situation. It is the feelings of the present that inspires the attitude and meaning from previous experience, producing the variables due to the interactions between the old and the new. As a result of an expressive action, it creates a new experience by means of the media, which clarifies and concentrates the meaning of those objects that are otherwise silent and inchoate. Dewey’s argument of artistic expression replaces the popular emotion-centered aesthetics of expressionism with an action-centered theory. Aesthetic emotion is not a mysterious entity that exists in advance, but is " implicated in a situation” and bred by an action. It is also developed from the natural emotion. Besides, Dewey reveals from the perspective of social psychology that aesthetic expression breaks the barrier of separating people from each other and is therefore a positive and constructive force of social and cultural transformation.