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About this quote

What does it mean?
Art is a kind of magic that escapes the falsehood of being true.
In plain terms
Art transcends literal truth.
What can you take from it?
Embrace art’s imaginative power.

Where it applies

  • creative practice
  • art criticism

Putting it to work

  • create without factual constraints
  • appreciate symbolic meaning

Questions to consider

  • When does art become truth‑telling?
  • What makes art magical?

Another view

Some art aims to convey truth directly.

More from Theodor Adorno

  1. 'And how comfortless is the thought that the sickness of the normal does not necessarily imply as its opposite the health of the sick, but that the latter usua…

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  2. 'Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.'

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  3. 'An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences.'

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