The Shudder of Dread
Theodor Adorno is frequently mentioned in critical reviews and discussions of art in general. His influence is felt far and wide. Adorno is a critic's critic. His views on art – specifically – however, are rare. I cannot say I have read much specifically about art, by Adorno, other than mention of a few well-known artists' names. Adorno seems to feel that's sufficient reference for the subject, which is in need of no further explanation by him. He assumes everybody knows what art is. Flattering, but perceived as an omission, while not necessarily a disappointment. To an artist, on the contrary, it's refreshing not to read what is already widely-known about art. What the thinking artist looks for in Adorno is critical thinking about art. Artists are also onlookers of art -and its criticism. What are grounds for art criticism? Adorno lays the ground rules for argument in general, with a nod towards the arts, specifically.
Adorno simply doesn't lecture on what he doesn't know - which is art - in addition to a world of other subjects of no concern to artists, either. He loves argument for itself. He is known as a philosopher, after all. Adorno is a dialectical negativist, by which is meant he steadfastly argues the contrary (regardless of his own personal position), in accordance with the long-established first principle of the middle Academy of ancient Greece: "Audiatur et altera pars." -Let both sides be heard. Adorno never met an opinion he didn't disagree with! Because Adorno has taken this same approach to politics – always the main object of dialectics – he is known as a “leftist.” I wouldn't have it any other way. Adorno represents causes (even mine), not positions.
Despite its minor-key status in philosophy, Adorno has diligently taken-on the obscure subject of aesthetics. According to his usual contrarian approach to arguments, Adorno defends the “sublime” aspect of art, in other words, the not-beautiful aspect of art. This brings Adorno into the mainstream of modern philosophy – at least since Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790) – which distinguishes the sublime from the beautiful. Like Adorno, Kant was not particularly attuned to art itself. Kant defined “the sublime” in terms of concepts inconceivable to the mind, while, at the same time, palpable to cognition -ideas such as infinity.
A feeling for the sublime was commonplace in the 18th Century. The Matterhorn, in the Swiss Alps, is but one, timeless, instance of sublimity in nature. Adjectives such as vast, deep, profound, abysmal, dreadful, perilous, “dark & stormy,” etc., were the lexicon of the art critics of Romanticism. The personal danger of standing upon a precipice was enjoyed as a pleasurable risk -so long, at least, as only the image of a painting. The art of the sublime touched a nerve, provoking the gasp of horror at the prospect of falling to one's death. The experience of the sublime reflex (if we may so call it) is the source of its persistence in aesthetics to this day.
Who has not had a “close call” with death? I could relate experiencing near-fatal incidents of my own, but that I shudder at the recollection of them. That 'shudder' is what Adorno refers-to in his native German language as “erschiütterung.” The perceptive listener may discern the cognate English word 'shudder' in the German word “erschiütterung.” It is this reflex response to the direct witness to terrifying danger, real or imagined, that makes Sublime. Adorno postulates this definition in his last published work, “Aesthetic Theory.” It was published unfinished in 1970, a year after his death. It may be faulted for being, thus, incomplete. To be fair, the entire subject of aesthetics is always unsatisfying, never complete. The philosopher's demise contributes to the sense of aporia, of being inconclusive, as well as incomplete.
Following are relevant passages from “Aesthetic Theory” by T. W. Adorno, translated by C. Lenhardt; 1984 London, Routledge & Kegen, Paul, pp. 255-260:
A legitimate subjective response to art is a sense of concern (Betroffenheit). Concern is triggered by great works. Concern is not some repressed emotion in the recipient that is brought to the surface by art but a momentary discomfiture, more precisely a tremor (Erschiütterung), during which he gives himself over to the work. He loses his footing, as it were, discovering that the truth embodied in the aesthetic image has real tangible possibilities. This kind of immediacy (in the best sense of the term) in one's relation to works is a function of mediation, i.e. of incisive, encompassing experience. Experience congeals in an instant, and for it to do so the whole of consciousness is required rather than some one-dimensional stimulus and response. To experience the truth or untruth of art is more than a subjective 'lived experience': it signals the breaking-through of objectivity into subjective consciousness. Objectivity mediates aesthetic experience even when the subjective response is at its most intense.
(example of Beethoven) ... resounds like an overwhelming 'This is how it is'. Now, subjective tremor is a response to the fear of being overwhelmed. While the music is mainly affirmative, art works seem to point a finger at their content.
Antithetical to the conventional notion of lived experience, tremor is no particularistic gratification of the ego; indeed, it is not pleasurable at all. Rather, it is a reminder of the liquidation of the ego. However, by being shaken-up the ego becomes aware of its limits and finitude. The experience of tremor, then, is contrary to the weakening of the ego that is promoted by the culture industry. For the culture industry the notion of tremor is just so much hot air. This may be one of the inmost causes for the desubstantialtion of art. If the ego wishes to look beyond the walls of the prison that it is, it needs not distraction, but the utmost concentration. This state of concentration prevents tremor from being regressive even though it is spontaneous behavior.
In his aesthetics of the sublime Kant faithfully depicted the power of the subject as being a precondition for the sublime. The statement that the ego is being destroyed is not literally true because of the presence of art. What are called aesthetic lived experiences, however, must be real psychological phenomena; if one were to view them as illusory, they would not make sense. Lived experience is not an as-if. The ego, it is true does not actually vanish in the instant of tremor; rapture or ecstasy would achieve this kind of total disappearance, but they are incompatible with artistic experience.
Momentarily the ego is perfectly able to become aware of the chance it has to leave the realm of self-preservation behind, but this ability alone does not suffice to realize that chance. What is illusory is not the aesthetic tremor itself, but its stance towards objectivity: in its immediacy tremor senses the existence of a potential that it pretends is real. The ego is seized by a consciousness that is un-metaphor1cal and destructive of aesthetic illusion. This consciousness tells the ego that it is not an absolute but an illusion. From the perspective of the subject, art at this juncture can be seen to turn into a historical spokesman for repressed nature. In the last analysis art is critical of the ego principle, the internal agency of repression. The subjective experience of an opposition to the ego is a moment of art's objective truth.