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Without Model: Parva Aesthetica
Essays by Adorno on art and cinema, available in English for the first time.
In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents a series of essays reflecting on culture at different levels, from the details of individual products to the social conditions of their production. He shows his more nostalgic side in the childhood reminiscences of ‘Amorbach’, but also his acute sociocultural analysis on the central topic of the culture industry. He criticizes attempts to maintain tradition in music and visual art, arguing against a restorative approach by stressing the modernity and individuality of historical works in the context of their time. In all of these essays, available for the first time in English, Adorno displays the remarkable thinking of one both steeped in tradition and dedicated to seeing beyond it.
In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents a series of essays reflecting on culture at different levels, from the details of individual products to the social conditions of their production. He shows his more nostalgic side in the childhood reminiscences of ‘Amorbach’, but also his acute sociocultural analysis on the central topic of the culture industry. He criticizes attempts to maintain tradition in music and visual art, arguing against a restorative approach by stressing the modernity and individuality of historical works in the context of their time. In all of these essays, available for the first time in English, Adorno displays the remarkable thinking of one both steeped in tradition and dedicated to seeing beyond it.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Theodor W. Adorno
606 books1,404 followersTheodor 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 and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.
Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.
Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.
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June 19, 2023
For years, hell – decades, I have been reading nonfiction well-peppered with quotes from Theodor Adorno. He gets cited for practically any subject. He had pithy things to say about seemingly everything, from psychology to television. I have built up an image of him as perceptive, wise and insightful. A true polymath, rare in the last century. So I was delighted to be offered a brand new book of his collected essays on culture. It’s called Without Model and it is very revealing – but not in a good way.
Adorno was first and foremost a musician, he said. As an German intellectual as well, he used his love of music to interpret everything he experienced along with lots he just read about. The results have often been inspiring. But having read the 16 essays here, I now see Adorno as more of a linguine chef, throwing sentences against a wall to see if they stick. The undercooked vastly outnumber the worthwhile ones.
Adorno thrived in the first two thirds of the 20th century, so he has plenty to say about cultural shifts, including art, film and of course, music.
My first real problem with Adorno is his use of the word immanent, meaning inherent or built-in. He uses it at least 25 times in these essays, more than I have ever seen it employed, and it is stifling. He seeks to cripple artistic license and expression with it. He makes sweeping claims about people, society, art and architecture—with no backup whatsoever—by claiming they have immanent structures and processes, like Western music does. I totally disagree that everything has a rule set to constrict it. If anything, I see art and culture striking out in all directions, often crazily, straining to reject any rule sets if they actually try to interpose themselves. It is often the artist’s specific goal to break as many rules as possible while saying something important. (And yes, I know he is far from the only one to deny this.)
Another problem is unsubstantiated claims. Adorno makes them and moves on, leaving them dangling. For example, there’s this observation on a paradox of culture: “Tradition confronts us today with an irresolvable contradiction: there is none present and can be summoned, yet if all trace of it is erased, the march towards inhumanity begins.” Not fundamentally true from where I stand, and not explained, let alone proved, by Adorno. Another example: “From a distance, however, the Eiffel Tower is the slim, hazy symbol that extends indestructible Babylon into the sky of modernity.” There are plenty more of these, and as I read them, I came to the conclusion they were not worth further thought at all. They are superficial, trivial and inconsequential observations based on nothing whatsoever.
Yet from this same rulebound writer comes a chapter in a multipart essay that begins with the word “However”. I freely confess it stopped me. I’ve never seen that before. They’d have flunked me in English had I tried that stunt.
But every so often, there is an insight that is memorable, such as his reminiscence as a ten year old being treated as worthy and a peer by a professional singer: ”I felt I had been taken up simultaneously into the adult world and the dreamt world, not yet suspecting how irreconcilable they are.” That’s the Adorno I love to see quoted. There’s also this result of his readings: “…a faithful translation of the Greek—Aristotphanic—word that I understood better the less I knew it: utopia.” Finally, in a discussion on inequality, he says “All the literature that rails against snobbery, which is in fact immanent in a society where formal equality serves to produce actual inequality and domination, conceals the wound even as it rubs salt into it.” These are inviting ideas I would love to read further on. But Adorno has already sprinted away to other thoughts. He was a busy thinker.
Some things to totally disagree with:
-For some unexplored reasons, Adorno hated art nouveau. This is a style I happen to love. I even dealt in art nouveau antiques for a number of years, so I am very well versed in it and its artists. Adorno says things like ”…all the films that wish to let wandering clouds and darkened ponds speak for themselves are leftovers of art nouveau.” This is not only a slight on art nouveau, but wrong about film as well. He does not follow up with an explanation, either. He unexpectedly goes after art nouveau this way six or eight times in the course of the book. It is not endearing – or even elaborated. Art nouveau broke the mold of the suffocating Victorian rule books, in art, in design, in furniture, furnishings and appliances, and in architecture. It was the last time that form mattered more than function. It was joyous and wild and liberating. But for Adorno “the arts defied the neat standardization—which is exactly what art nouveau was.”
-The Baroque era comes in for even more intense floggings. He claims that we today express an ”ideological misuse of the Baroque,” which somehow lessens its importance in music, art and architecture. Yes, baroque has become an amorphous adjective, but so what?
-He says it is “nonsense” to perform the music of the Baroque era on period instruments, which happens to be a very popular trend, for a several decades now. Yes, instruments today are far more sophisticated, but that does not lessen the experience of hearing what the composer and the audience heard in that era.
-He claims blurred shots and flashbacks in film are “silliness” and that we should “renounce” them, basically because they counter the realism so central to film. Could anything in culture be less true?
But worse, his language is immensely dense. It is often difficult to make sense of his sentences, though they seem to be well constructed: “The demand for a meaningful relation between materials, procedures and import on the one hand and the fetishism of means on the other blend into a murky texture.” This is something Noam Chomsky could have written about meaning and grammar. It looks like good language, but at the same time it also appears to be total gibberish. There are whole pages of this. I refuse to go back and try to make sense of them.
And his all-out dismissals become tiresome:
-“Every commercial film is really no more than trailer for what it promises the viewer while cheating them of the same.” So much for film.
-The same applies to art: “In order to become fully art, art must crystallize autonomously according to its own formal law. This is what constitutes its truth content; otherwise it would be subordinate to what it denies through its mere existence.” This too goes on for more than a page, and as far as I can see, explains nothing that needs explaining and is of no use in liking, appreciating or promoting art.
-He even blithely dismisses the poor, saying “If there were no more poverty, humanity would have to be able to sleep as unguardedly as only its poorest do today.” Poverty provides the best sleep? Not only painfully wrong, but so arrogant. Spoken like an effete elitist.
Finally, the book provides references to minor German artists and thinkers that readers will not have heard of. It makes his claims null and void as there is little way to understand what he meant with these references. The cultural restrictions on top of the wild claims will lead readers to rush past the entire section instead. Because stopping to research the reference will almost certainly not result in a Eureka moment.
So it is a difficult book to enjoy or learn from.
Without Model is billed as unique – the first time these essays on art and culture have been translated into English. I think it is self-evident why.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
Adorno was first and foremost a musician, he said. As an German intellectual as well, he used his love of music to interpret everything he experienced along with lots he just read about. The results have often been inspiring. But having read the 16 essays here, I now see Adorno as more of a linguine chef, throwing sentences against a wall to see if they stick. The undercooked vastly outnumber the worthwhile ones.
Adorno thrived in the first two thirds of the 20th century, so he has plenty to say about cultural shifts, including art, film and of course, music.
My first real problem with Adorno is his use of the word immanent, meaning inherent or built-in. He uses it at least 25 times in these essays, more than I have ever seen it employed, and it is stifling. He seeks to cripple artistic license and expression with it. He makes sweeping claims about people, society, art and architecture—with no backup whatsoever—by claiming they have immanent structures and processes, like Western music does. I totally disagree that everything has a rule set to constrict it. If anything, I see art and culture striking out in all directions, often crazily, straining to reject any rule sets if they actually try to interpose themselves. It is often the artist’s specific goal to break as many rules as possible while saying something important. (And yes, I know he is far from the only one to deny this.)
Another problem is unsubstantiated claims. Adorno makes them and moves on, leaving them dangling. For example, there’s this observation on a paradox of culture: “Tradition confronts us today with an irresolvable contradiction: there is none present and can be summoned, yet if all trace of it is erased, the march towards inhumanity begins.” Not fundamentally true from where I stand, and not explained, let alone proved, by Adorno. Another example: “From a distance, however, the Eiffel Tower is the slim, hazy symbol that extends indestructible Babylon into the sky of modernity.” There are plenty more of these, and as I read them, I came to the conclusion they were not worth further thought at all. They are superficial, trivial and inconsequential observations based on nothing whatsoever.
Yet from this same rulebound writer comes a chapter in a multipart essay that begins with the word “However”. I freely confess it stopped me. I’ve never seen that before. They’d have flunked me in English had I tried that stunt.
But every so often, there is an insight that is memorable, such as his reminiscence as a ten year old being treated as worthy and a peer by a professional singer: ”I felt I had been taken up simultaneously into the adult world and the dreamt world, not yet suspecting how irreconcilable they are.” That’s the Adorno I love to see quoted. There’s also this result of his readings: “…a faithful translation of the Greek—Aristotphanic—word that I understood better the less I knew it: utopia.” Finally, in a discussion on inequality, he says “All the literature that rails against snobbery, which is in fact immanent in a society where formal equality serves to produce actual inequality and domination, conceals the wound even as it rubs salt into it.” These are inviting ideas I would love to read further on. But Adorno has already sprinted away to other thoughts. He was a busy thinker.
Some things to totally disagree with:
-For some unexplored reasons, Adorno hated art nouveau. This is a style I happen to love. I even dealt in art nouveau antiques for a number of years, so I am very well versed in it and its artists. Adorno says things like ”…all the films that wish to let wandering clouds and darkened ponds speak for themselves are leftovers of art nouveau.” This is not only a slight on art nouveau, but wrong about film as well. He does not follow up with an explanation, either. He unexpectedly goes after art nouveau this way six or eight times in the course of the book. It is not endearing – or even elaborated. Art nouveau broke the mold of the suffocating Victorian rule books, in art, in design, in furniture, furnishings and appliances, and in architecture. It was the last time that form mattered more than function. It was joyous and wild and liberating. But for Adorno “the arts defied the neat standardization—which is exactly what art nouveau was.”
-The Baroque era comes in for even more intense floggings. He claims that we today express an ”ideological misuse of the Baroque,” which somehow lessens its importance in music, art and architecture. Yes, baroque has become an amorphous adjective, but so what?
-He says it is “nonsense” to perform the music of the Baroque era on period instruments, which happens to be a very popular trend, for a several decades now. Yes, instruments today are far more sophisticated, but that does not lessen the experience of hearing what the composer and the audience heard in that era.
-He claims blurred shots and flashbacks in film are “silliness” and that we should “renounce” them, basically because they counter the realism so central to film. Could anything in culture be less true?
But worse, his language is immensely dense. It is often difficult to make sense of his sentences, though they seem to be well constructed: “The demand for a meaningful relation between materials, procedures and import on the one hand and the fetishism of means on the other blend into a murky texture.” This is something Noam Chomsky could have written about meaning and grammar. It looks like good language, but at the same time it also appears to be total gibberish. There are whole pages of this. I refuse to go back and try to make sense of them.
And his all-out dismissals become tiresome:
-“Every commercial film is really no more than trailer for what it promises the viewer while cheating them of the same.” So much for film.
-The same applies to art: “In order to become fully art, art must crystallize autonomously according to its own formal law. This is what constitutes its truth content; otherwise it would be subordinate to what it denies through its mere existence.” This too goes on for more than a page, and as far as I can see, explains nothing that needs explaining and is of no use in liking, appreciating or promoting art.
-He even blithely dismisses the poor, saying “If there were no more poverty, humanity would have to be able to sleep as unguardedly as only its poorest do today.” Poverty provides the best sleep? Not only painfully wrong, but so arrogant. Spoken like an effete elitist.
Finally, the book provides references to minor German artists and thinkers that readers will not have heard of. It makes his claims null and void as there is little way to understand what he meant with these references. The cultural restrictions on top of the wild claims will lead readers to rush past the entire section instead. Because stopping to research the reference will almost certainly not result in a Eureka moment.
So it is a difficult book to enjoy or learn from.
Without Model is billed as unique – the first time these essays on art and culture have been translated into English. I think it is self-evident why.
David Wineberg
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
Displaying 1 of 1 review