Adorno writes that enjoyment is not the be-all of art.  Certainly it isn’t for the producers of art: “If you ask a musician if he enjoys playing his instrument, he will probably reply: ‘I hate it’ . . . People who have a genuine relation to art would rather immerse themselves in art than reduce art to an object.  They cannot live without art, but its individual manifestations are not so many sources of pleasure for them.”
Adorno sees a social dimension to this: “The bourgeois wants his art luxurious, his life ascetic.  It would make more sense if it were the other way around.”
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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