Religion in Art

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that, while rejecting the embodying of religious meaning in art and artwork in the institutionalized sense of churches or other organized religions, Adorno identified and insisted upon a revelatory role for art itself in terms of its engagement with the human condition and human values. The paper states that Adorno was, in many ways, a writer and thinker profoundly influenced by religion.

From the Paper:

"For the social and cultural critic and theorist Theodor Adorno (1903-69), art is integrated into the society that produces it, and cannot be considered separately from the economic, political and ideological circumstances of its creation. This position reflects the continuing influence of Marxist theoretical approaches to art which can be found underlying even Adorno's most radical writings. However, Adorno tended to distance himself from a crude materialist or historical-contextual reading of art, focusing on a close reading of the work itself and claiming such thorough analysis from the inside would enable a reading of the work's social meanings without cumbersome references to external contexts. Those social meanings, however, remained central to any accurate and meaningful understanding of the work, whether literary, musical, or visual in nature."

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