John Dewey's essay, the organizations of energies, is a dense writing filled with several very acute observations about how we perceive and create art. Several of the analogies he uses to illustrate his points venture far beyond what is typically recognized as 'pieces of art' and help enhance his abstract and complicated views on what it means to create and experience. Unfortunately, his ideas can get so complicated and abstract that his dense wording and phrasing at times render his writing incomprehensible (to me).
Dewey is best when he writes simply. On page 186 he writes, "The common element in all the arts, technological and useful, is organization of energy as a means for producing a result. Resistance prevents immediate discharge and accumulates tension that renders energy intense." The clarity in this section really drives home some of the points he is attempting to make for the entirety of the essay. Energy is essential in creating and the intensity of that energy is what makes a work effective. He clearly identifies resistance as an agent that can promote that effectiveness.
His most engaging ideas in this essay discuss the concept of rhythm as the driving force of an energy. His example of singers who take creative liberties struck a note with me (pun intended). The rhythm of the work relies on the relationship between the artist and the work. Dewey writes, "Esthetic recurrence [of rhythm] is that of relationships that sum up and carry forward" (p.172). The singer's relationship to the song is clearly defined by how he/she organizes the energy of the rhythm that carries the piece forward.
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