What does it mean to understand education as an art, to conceive inquiry in education aesthetically, or to assess pedagogy artistically? Answers to these queries are often grounded in Deweyan instrumentalism, neo-Marxist critical theory, or postmodern skepticism that tend to fall prey to the paradoxes of radical relativism and extreme subjectivism. This essay offers an alternative, communitarian account of education as an art and a neo-Kantian approach to aesthetic inquiry in education that avoids these difficulties. The author begins by examining the emergence of aesthetic inquiry in education in the context of the larger qualitative revolution in educational research. He contends that artistic inquiry in education lies at the very heart of pedagogic research and it is not a supplement to other forms of investigation and assessment. (Contains 86 notes.)