Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory uniquely defended modern art after modern art’s heroic phase had ended.

Evidence

Aesthetic Theory, after all this, now became a summa which defended the project of modern art as no other theory of art in the postwar period hada period in which the heroic phase of modern art seemed to have irrevocably faded into the past. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 680

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Summa’ here names Aesthetic Theory as Adorno’s culminating synthesis; the ‘heroic phase’ periodization is the book’s organizing claim about art history.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno judged modern art by its refusal to fully separate from what it abolishes — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2720; Adorno responded to student iconoclasm by reasserting art’s right to exist under prohibition — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2716; Adorno argued art’s right to exist returns precisely when it is banned — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 679 (+4 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno judged modern art by its refusal to fully separate from what it abolishes — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2720; Adorno responded to student iconoclasm by reasserting art’s right to exist under prohibition — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2716; Adorno argued art’s right to exist returns precisely when it is banned — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 679 (+4 more)