Precis: “Art Without Circumstance”

Adorno takes to defining art through its autonomy. “Because art is what it has become, its concept refers to what it does not contain” (Adorno; p.3). Eventually art is not a reflection of its unique culture, but rather an identity within itself. As time passes, the reason in which an object was created becomes less evident to the contemporary viewer. Adorno seems hostile in his view of art that in unsustainable without context. The only way in which art can be properly viewed is through this level of existence or self-identity. “Only by virtue of separation from empirical reality, which sanctions art to model the relation of the whole and the part according to the works own need, does the artwork achieve a heightened order of existence” (Adorno; p.4) Our understanding of a piece needs to be taken no further than the piece itself.