Adorno held that art must offer animated form in a soulless reality

Evidence

From the very beginning, therefore, Adorno was making one specific demand of works of art: they must offer inspired (beseelte) forms. It was clear to him that reality offered the soul no home. But it was just as clear to him that in such a world it was nevertheless possible, in the sphere of art, to have animated (durchseelte) forms: Schoenberg’s work was proof of this. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 282

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Adorno’s early core aesthetic demand, the ‘beseelte’ form, and grounds his later mimesis theory.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 282
• XREF: connects to: Adorno justified art’s autonomy as the silent recording of what politics barred. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2744; Adorno demanded that art offer animated forms born from the ego, not borrowed ones.