Book Review: The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum by Laura D’Olimpio (2024).
The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum by Laura D’Olimpio (2024). London: Bloomsbury Academic. 176 pp. ISBN: 9781350120907 (Hardback). $115.00.
Hastangka & Benny Widaryanto
Research Center for Education National Research and Innovation Agency
Abstract
This review critically engages with Laura D’Olimpio’s The Necessity of Aesthetic Education, a philosophical defense of the intrinsic value of arts education. D’Olimpio challenges the prevailing instrumentalist justifications for arts in the curriculum, advocating instead for the central role of aesthetic experience in human flourishing. Drawing on figures such as Dewey, Greene, and Nussbaum, the book presents a normative, essentialist argument for compulsory arts education rooted in phenomenology, ethics, and the philosophy of value. This review evaluates the coherence and implications of D’Olimpio’s arguments, situates them within educational and policy contexts in Western nations, and considers their relevance for curriculum design, teacher education, and educational equity. While acknowledging some limitations in empirical depth and practical guidance, the review affirms the book’s contribution to re-centering the arts as foundational to holistic education.
Arts Education in Policy and Practice
D’Olimpio begins with a highlight critique of arts education across three Western contexts: Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (see p.9-16). While national curricula often include the arts as compulsory, the reality is that implementation is marred by systemic inequalities and diminishing resources. She points out that access to high-quality arts education correlates strongly with socioeconomic status and institutional prioritization. As students advance in school, the arts are often marginalized in favor of STEM subjects, a trend exacerbated by standardized testing regimes and resource competition. The chapter’s strength lies in its breadth and clarity. It connects policy discourse to systemic injustices and underscores the rhetorical gap between educational aims and lived reality. However, it lacks granular qualitative data. First-hand perspectives from educators or students would have offered deeper insight into the human cost of arts marginalization.
Why Value the Arts and Arts Education?
This section surveys dominant justifications for arts education, particularly those invoking creativity, self-expression, or moral development. D’Olimpio argues that these are ultimately insufficient. She critiques such instrumentalist logic for reducing the arts to means rather than ends, warning that this leaves them vulnerable to being replaced by other subjects when political priorities shift. The philosophical analysis is compelling and theoretically rich. D’Olimpio successfully shows that common rationales often conflate the incidental with the essential. However, by so decisively rejecting instrumental arguments, she risks narrowing her audience. In an era where education is often justified in economic or civic terms, an integrated justification might be more pragmatically effective.
Defending Arts Education
D’Olimpio critiques the foundational work of Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene (p.52), two giants in arts education. While acknowledging their contributions, she argues that their defenses are composite and rely too heavily on outcomes-based justifications. Instead, she proposes a simpler and more robust essentialist defense that focuses exclusively on the distinctive affordances of aesthetic experience. This section is theoretically well-structured and courageously revisionist. Yet, D’Olimpio might have more generously situated Eisner and Greene within their own historical and strategic contexts. Their composite arguments were perhaps necessary in eras when the arts had even less curricular legitimacy.
The book’s philosophical core lies in this chapter. D’Olimpio argues that aesthetic experience is a universal human capacity essential to a flourishing life. Drawing on Dewey, Beardsley, Nussbaum, and Dutton, she articulates a phenomenological and capabilities-based defense of the arts in education. Aesthetic experience, she contends, enables unique forms of perception, emotion, and understanding that no other domain offers. This chapter is both passionate and precise. The invocation of Frank Jackson’s Mary thought experiment powerfully illustrates the distinction between propositional knowledge and perceptual understanding. However, the discussion would benefit from further elaboration on how such experiences are cultivated pedagogically. What does this mean for teacher training and classroom practice?
Objections and Replies
Two central objections are addressed: the “naturalistic” objection (that aesthetic appreciation requires no formal education) and the “subjectivity” objection (that not all students value or benefit from the arts). D’Olimpio deftly counters both. To the former, she asserts that natural capacities still require cultivation; to the latter, she argues that education’s role is precisely to expand horizons and deepen experience. This section is among the book’s most effective. It engages with genuine philosophical skepticism and responds with clarity and depth. The discussion is ethically robust and pedagogically informed.
Instrumental Defences of Arts Education
Here D’Olimpio critically engages with empirical studies, including the 2013 OECD report Art for Art’s Sake?. She acknowledges that while some instrumental benefits are well-documented, many others remain speculative. More importantly, she argues that reducing the arts to ancillary benefits strips them of their cultural and existential significance.This chapter serves as an important warning against reductive thinking. Nonetheless, it could have offered a more nuanced path forward by exploring how intrinsic and instrumental values might be integrated without compromise.
Aesthetics and Ethics
The final analytical chapter explores the ethical dimensions of art. D’Olimpio critiques aestheticism and endorses ethicism (see p.132-145), arguing that aesthetic judgments can and should take moral dimensions into account. She supports an educational approach that fosters critical and sympathetic engagement with artworks—even those that are ethically complex or controversial. This is a timely and significant contribution. D’Olimpio’s emphasis on the dual role of the art teacher as both guide and critic is particularly valuable. Still, more detailed pedagogical strategies for addressing ethically problematic content would have enhanced the chapter’s practical utility.
Why This Book Matters
D’Olimpio’s book is important because it challenges the dominant narratives in education policy and practice that have increasingly marginalized the arts in favor of quantifiable, vocationally oriented subjects. By returning attention to the inherent worth of aesthetic experience, she reframes the arts not as supplementary or expendable, but as foundational to the development of the whole person. The book’s central thesis that aesthetic experience is essential to human flourishing resonates across disciplines, from philosophy and psychology to pedagogy and cultural studies.
This book is necessary reading for several reasons. First, it provides a clear and philosophically rigorous defense of arts education at a time when public discourse and education budgets often treat the arts as dispensable. Second, it connects abstract theory with concrete policy analysis, showing how gaps between policy and practice lead to inequitable educational experiences. Third, it offers educators, policymakers, and philosophers a language and framework for advocating for the arts not because of what they produce (e.g., test scores, job skills), but because of what they inherently are.
The book contributes to the field of education by offering a unified, essentialist rationale for the inclusion of the arts in school curricula. This is a significant departure from the more common composite or instrumentalist defenses. D’Olimpio also elevates the philosophical quality of educational discourse by engaging deeply with thinkers like Dewey, Greene, Eisner, Nussbaum, and Beardsley (p.38-39), while critiquing the insufficiencies of prevailing arguments. Her work is poised to influence both theoretical discussions and practical decisions around curriculum design and educational priorities.
Readers especially those involved in curriculum development, teacher education, philosophy of education, and arts advocacy will find in this book a well-structured, thoughtful, and ethically compelling argument for reimagining the place of the arts in education. It is a call to resist the commodification of learning and to reassert the role of the arts in cultivating meaning, empathy, and a richer sense of what it means to be human.
Conclusion
The Necessity of Aesthetic Education is a rigorous and impassioned defense of the arts in education. It offers a philosophically compelling case for compulsory aesthetic education, deeply rooted in both normative ethics and educational theory. While certain sections would benefit from greater empirical depth or practical elaboration, the book remains a vital contribution to aesthetic education scholarship. D’Olimpio has made a strong case that arts education is not a luxury but a moral and pedagogical necessity.
Notes on contributor
Hastangka is a researcher at the Research Center for Education, National Research and Innovation Agency. He has research interest in policy, philosophy of education, education for sustainable development, and indigenous education. He has concern on research and study of education in the area of social and humanities sciences.
Benny Widaryanto is a researcher at the Research Center for Education, National Research and Innovation Agency. He has research focus on evaluation of education, curriculum studies, and social and humanities science.
ORCID
Hastangka 
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9104-5207
Benny Widaryanto 
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9499-8607