Traditionally, western theory of art has been equipped with a set of dualisms such as subject-object, artistic process-artistic product, active artist-passive spectator, that has supposed a rejection of a plenary notion of the human integrated with nature and the cosmos. In this context, John Dewey, who presented his theory of art in 1934 in Art as Experience, showed how the “art has been set in a remote pedestal”, separated from the low activities which we realized in our ordinary lives. He refused the way aesthetics has separated the live creature from the world in which it lives, and proposes a new approach which begin from the raw, from everyday human activities. The aim of this paper is to focus interest in Dewey’s notion of rhythm, because this characteristic set the pace of the aesthetic process.
This paper explores Dewey’s proposal from a comparative approach, because the rejection of art-centred discourse to the rich aesthetic dimensions of our lives is not common in all cultural traditions. I begin defining the deweyan notion of rhythm in contrast to the vital rhythm of Taoist aesthetics. Both Dewey and Taoists postulate that Human beings are affected and participate in nature’s rhythms and the reality is a continually changing balance. Secondly, I would like to consider a specific classic Chinese work of aesthetics, written by Shí Tāo (石涛) in the seventeenth century, which was developed fundamental aspects of rhythm in capturing the spirit resonance of the world and revealed its immensity through the method of the one-stroke.
Through this paper’s presentation, I wish to show the importance of the rhythm in the creative process, because rhythm marks not only our interaction with the environment and with other people, but also the impulse of the aesthetic world-making process
