restorative element, not unlike that of the individualization of crafts, has since become
equally clear. To this day, they are still bound to discussions of objectivity.
In any given product, freedom from purpose and purposefulness can never be
absolutely separated from one another. The two notions are historically interconnected.
The ornaments, after all, which Loos expulsed with a vehemence quite out of character,
are often actually vestiges of outmoded means of production. And conversely, numerous
purposes, like sociability, dance and entertainment, have filtered into purpose-free art;
they have been generally incorporated into its formal and generic laws. Purposefulness
without purpose is thus really the sublimation of purpose. Nothing exists as an aesthetic
object in itself, but only within the field of tension of such sublimation. Therefore there is
no chemically pure purposefulness set up as the opposite of the purpose-free aesthetic.
Even the most pure forms of purpose are nourished by ideas—like formal transparency
and graspability—which in fact are derived from artistic experience. No form can be said
to be determined exhaustively by its purpose. This can be seen even in one of
Schönberg’s revolutionary works, the First Chamber Symphony, about which Loos wrote
some of his most insightful words. Ironically, an ornamental theme appears, with a
double beat recalling at once a central motif from Wagner’s ‘Götterdämmerung’ and the
theme from the First Movement of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony. The ornament is the
sustaining invention, if you will, objective in its own right. Precisely this transitional
theme becomes the model of a canonical exposition in the fourfold counterpoint, and
thereby the model of the first extreme constructivist complex in modern music.
Schönberg’s belief in such material was appropriated from the Kunstgewerbe religion,
which worshipped the supposed nobility of matter; it still continues to provide inspiration
even in autonomous art. He combined with this belief the ideas of a construction fitting to
the material. To it corresponds an undialectical concept of beauty, which encompasses
autonomous art like a nature preserve. That art aspires to autonomy does not mean that it
unconditionally purges itself of ornamental elements; the very existence of art, judged by
the criteria of the practical, is ornamental. If Loos’s aversion to ornament had been
rigidly consistent, he would have had to extend it to all of art. To his credit, he stopped
before reaching this conclusion. In this circumspection, by the way, he is similar to the
positivists. On the one hand, they would expunge from the realm of philosophy anything
which they deem poetic. On the other, they sense no infringement by poetry itself on their
kind of positivism. Thus, they tolerate poetry if it remains in a special realm, neutralized
and unchallenged, since they have already relaxed the notion of objective truth.
The belief that a substance bears within itself its own adequate form presumes that it is
already invested with meaning. Such a doctrine made the symbolist aesthetic possible.
The resistance to the excesses of the applied arts pertained not just to hidden forms, but
also to the cult of materials. It created an aura of essentiality about them. Loos expressed
precisely this notion in his critique of batik. Meanwhile, the invention of artificial
products—materials originating in industry—no longer permitted the archaic faith in an
innate beauty, the foundation of a magic connected with precious elements. Furthermore,
the crisis arising from the latest developments of autonomous art demonstrated how little
meaningful organization could depend on the material itself. Whenever organizational
principles rely too heavily on material, the result approaches mere patchwork. The idea of
fittingness to the materials in purposeful art cannot remain indifferent to such criticisms.
Indeed, the illusion of purposefulness as its own purpose cannot stand up to the simplest
Theodor W.Adorno 7