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Aesthetic Theory (Theory and History of Literature #88)
by
Perhaps the most important aesthetics of the twentieth century appears here newly translated, in English that is for the first time faithful to the intricately demanding language of the original German. The culmination of a lifetime of aesthetic investigation, Aesthetic Theory is Theodor W. Adorno's magnum opus, the clarifying lens through which the whole of his work is be
...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
August 12th 1998
by Univ Of Minnesota Press
(first published 1970)
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Do not let the title mislead you: This is not light reading.
Aesthetic Theory is like an endless search for what exactly art is. Why do people bother making music, writing, painting. What is art trying to accomplish, why is it there at all. Art is the elusive main character that nearly four hundred pages of dense theory attempts to grasp.
On a grand level art, according to Adorno, is (1) against the world and polemical towards society (“by crystallizing itself as something unique to itself, rathe ...more
Aesthetic Theory is like an endless search for what exactly art is. Why do people bother making music, writing, painting. What is art trying to accomplish, why is it there at all. Art is the elusive main character that nearly four hundred pages of dense theory attempts to grasp.
On a grand level art, according to Adorno, is (1) against the world and polemical towards society (“by crystallizing itself as something unique to itself, rathe ...more
Dense dense dense.
Ever want to spend a little too much time reading one sentence then realize it has been three months? Worth the read for what is going on, but prepare yourself. You are not prepared.
Ever want to spend a little too much time reading one sentence then realize it has been three months? Worth the read for what is going on, but prepare yourself. You are not prepared.
Aug 04, 2015
Daniel Nanavati
added it
if you want to know where Duchamp got it from and have an almost metaphysical experience of what art is, read this. You may not end up agreeing with him but he will take you to places no other art critic or philosopher has gone..
bible
yay philosophical curmudgeonism!
I LOVE THIS BOOK
L'arte non ha leggi universali, di certo però in ognuna delle sue fasi vigono divieti obiettivamente vincolanti. Questi si irradiano dalle opere canoniche. L'esistenza di esse intima subito che cosa da lì in avanti non sarà più possibile. (Paralipomena, p.418)
Complessa opera postuma e incompiuta di Adorno, Teoria estetica è un enorme frammento di oltre quattrocento pagine in cui il filosofo intraprende una tortuosa ricerca alla scoperta dell'arte del XX secolo tra le opere di Beckett, Valéry, K ...more
Complessa opera postuma e incompiuta di Adorno, Teoria estetica è un enorme frammento di oltre quattrocento pagine in cui il filosofo intraprende una tortuosa ricerca alla scoperta dell'arte del XX secolo tra le opere di Beckett, Valéry, K ...more
Dense. Plodding. Important. Adorno is tough. A lot of this is associative and seems like flights of fancy. But the gems of insight that come every 20-30 pages or so make this work crucial.
Unfinished at Adorno's death, Aesthetic Theory exists as a bundle of drafts and marginalia. Because of its incompletion and the editorial mish-mash of its existing state, this is difficult to sum up as a whole, especially given that by the two hundred-page marker we've made it to half-baked rants. Still, if there's an underlying thesis here, it's contained in the maxim: "An artwork is always itself and simultaneously the other of itself." It's a sort of paraphrase of Benjamin's paradox of art (t
...more
A real slog. Posthumously published. One suspects that Adorno would have culled at least one-fifth of the text had he lived to revise it. Anyway, it's fully worth the effort because of his radical reorientation of aesthetics and his theory of mediation, which rescues art from the often cold or mean-spirited leveling effect of much Marxist criticism or cultural theory, particularly that brand of crit that flourished in the 90s and was so distrustful of the word "art" much less the concept that al
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Life happens, unfortunately. It would be swell to exist in a realm where death and history did not interfere with works-in-progress. I jest, I jest. The fact that Adorno had to leave this text "unfinished" and fragmentary is remarkably congruous with the theory itself; a macabre coincidence, ruse of history or what you will. There is nothing extraneous here, not one wasted word. One can read and reread and still not exhaust the page. Banished to a deserted island, this would be the book I'd want
...more
pretty great, stimulating theory of literature, until he starts looking at specific poems and poets, and you realise that Adorno is not actually a very good literary critic. apparently once he comes down out of critiques of heidegger and hegelian dialectic to actual flat-surfaced, ambiguous signifiers, there occurs that most common syndrome: the altitudinal brain seizure.
also, proceeds to deconstruct a lot of very reductive labels, and then just calls Celan "hermetic". and Celan was not happy. ...more
also, proceeds to deconstruct a lot of very reductive labels, and then just calls Celan "hermetic". and Celan was not happy. ...more
It is a philosophical book and that brings with it a difficulty. I read it it in German and that increased the difficulty, since German sentences are neverending and can be a whole paragraph long.
Who is interested in knowing what beauty is and what the nature of beauty and Art is then this is the right book.
Who is interested in knowing what beauty is and what the nature of beauty and Art is then this is the right book.
Moni ei tiedä että kääntäjä on jättänyt merkittävät osaa kirjaa kääntämättä. Asia kyllä mainitaan esipuheessa, mutta kääntämättä on jäänyt otsikon Paralipomena alle kootut fragmentit, joille ei ollut vielä löytynyt paikkaa kokonaisuudessa, kun Adorno kuoli kesken työn 1969. Myöskään itsenäinen essee taiteen alkuperästä ei sisälly suomennokseen.
This is on my reread list. It was to have formed the foundation of the Dissertation, if I had actually written it. Adorno poses the problem of art and art theory in the twentieth century as the continuous re-orientation of art and theory in continous tension over innovation, representation and language. A must read (or in my case) reread.
Adorno's style is headspinning. The insight is
scatter-shot at first but sinks in later. In the
current theoretical climate, though, there is some
question whether his focus on self-contained aesthetic
objects, or the categorical autonomy of art as art,will
survive.
scatter-shot at first but sinks in later. In the
current theoretical climate, though, there is some
question whether his focus on self-contained aesthetic
objects, or the categorical autonomy of art as art,will
survive.
This is probably Adorno's most important work. I realize this is a decent translation into English. I liked the earlier one even better. I'm not sure it needed to be retranslated.
really condense. further reading needed
Excellent work, superb analysis and great outcome!
Another rewarding read from one of the best art theorists around.
Jul 26, 2008
Molly
is currently reading it
"Late works are the catastrophes in the history of art, embodying radical discontinuity."
Very difficult book on philosophy and art. Hope to finish sometime in the next 10 years!
Beauty is a funnel-cloud, transporting itself in the shapes it assumes by its turbulent motion.
I would give it five stars if I really felt I understood it deeply, nevertheless it is well marked and frayed.
Dense at times. Hurried at others. Be back to give my thoughts.
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Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science a
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More about Theodor W. Adorno
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“The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.”
—
21 likes
“Art respects the masses, by confronting them as that which they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.”
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