Art’s perfection increases as human intention drops away from it

Evidence

Art attempts to imitate an expression that would not involve any intrusion from human intention. Human intention is merely its vehicle. The more perfect the work of art, the more intentions drop away from it. Mediately, nature is the truth content of art, but immediately it produces its opposite. If the language of nature is silent, art strives to bring what is silent to speak. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2735

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment thesis about instrumental reason versus mimesis; also resonates with the reader’s interest in silence as a positive presence from Hempton’s One Square Inch of Silence. — connects to: Art achieves objective revelation through subjective effort only at the cost of illusoriness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2742; Art redeems existence precisely by not striving to attain being; Art’s continued existence testifies to a paradox that grounds all beauty (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the Adornian concept of art as non-conceptual language striving to give voice to silent nature.

Broader Connections

• Artistic expression is not instinctual sublimation but an objective polemical self-revelation #contradicts (0.85)
• Art achieves objective revelation through subjective effort only at the cost of illusoriness #complicates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2742
• Self-admiration prevents the self-forgetting that artistic transcendence demands. #corroborates (0.80)
• Art redeems existence precisely by not striving to attain being #corroborates (0.75)
• Art’s continued existence testifies to a paradox that grounds all beauty #expands (0.72)
• Art can function as attention-holding architecture against distraction #contradicts (0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 58