# Quote — John Dewey, Art as Experience

> In ordinary visual perception, we see by means of light; we distinguish by means of reflected and refracted colors. But in ordinary perception, this medium of color is mixed, adulterated. While we see, we also hear; we feel pressures, and heat and cold. In a painting, color renders the scene without these alloys and impurities. They are part of the dross that is squeezed out and left behind in an act of intensified expression. The medium becomes color alone, and since color alone must now carry the qualities of movement, touch, sound, etc., that are present physically on their own account in ordinary vision, the expressiveness and energy of color are enhanced.

- Author: [John Dewey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey.md)
- Book: [Art as Experience](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience.md)
- Page: 203
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dewey#Art_as_Experience_(1934)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience/in-ordinary-visual

## More from this book

> Naturalism is a word of many meetings in philosophy as well as in art. like most isms — classicism and romanticism, idealism and realism in art — it’s has become an emotional term, a war cry of partisans.

p. 157 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience/naturalism-is-a-word.md)

> The recurrence of relations—not of elements—in different contexts, which constitutes transposition is qualitative and hence directly experienced in perception.

p. 219 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience/the-recurrence-of-relations-not.md)

> Even the eye that is artificially trained to see color as color, apart from things that colors qualify, cannot shut out the resonances and transfers of value.

p. 126 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience/even-the-eye.md)