Theodor Adorno’s Concept of Negative Aesthetic Experience

This article attempts to present Theodor Adorno’s concept of negative aesthetic experience, which is the logical continuation of development of his negative dialectics theory. In this concept, social substance of a human is dialectically connected with his inherent ability for negation, and that is why it can help to better understand both the contradictory essence of the modernist music and the art as a whole. Artem E. Radeev’s concept of the aesthetic experience is used as a methodology. According to this concept, the aesthetic experience is a process, which has three consecutive components: aesthetic relation, aesthetic event and aesthetic effect. The author of the article explores Adorno’s constellation type of thinking, which supposes equal distance of all perception objects from the subject. Every element does not follow the previous one, so it breaks the continuality of the logical construct. The article also explores the contradictory nature of art. On the one hand, it is the product of social relations; on the other, it embodies alienation from society. Adorno suggests that apparently calm and balanced artistic images are explosions of the forces at work within them. Their antinomies reflect fierce contradictions of our world. Adorno’s concept of negative aesthetic experience is developed on the basis of the above-noted methodology at the end of the article. It can also be presented as three consecutive components. This concept can be used in analyzing any work of art, which does not follow social standards and demands.