Works of art have always been reproducible, through imitation. This “aura” Benjamin discusses is the result of distance which is decayed by the desire of the masses to bring things closer both in human and in spatial terms. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" When was this essay written, and in what social context? The question is, almost one hundred years later, is this essay anything more than a predictor of what we already know? 'The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility ... tions-the reproduction of artworks and the art of film-are having on art in its traditional form. Walter Benjamin’s essay is quite complex – while reading, answer these reading questions to guide and clarify your thinking. The photographs are taking the place of paintings, but the paintings had a connection with history and culture which is absent in pictures. Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed. Most people know “art” only from mechanical reproductions, augmented by occasional visits to a museum or gallery. Here was a mode of production of information and knowledge that could reach the masses and present them with a social critique. In fact this clear threat could have been the cause for the aggressive censorship of The Last Judgment. For Benjamin, that continuing promise of Marxism could be found in mechanical reproduction. The concept of the “Aura” of the work of art was inspired by Benjamin’s experiences with the old sections of Paris, the Arcades, where he strolled, like a twentieth century Baudelaire. Communism replies by politicizing art. As Benjamin wrote, “By replicating the work many times over, it substitutes a mass existence for a  unique experience.”. In WriteWork.com. Therefore the film offers no participation from its viewers. Although he left the city very soon after the Nazis came into power, at the insistence of the wife of Theodor Adorno, Gretel Karplus, the repression of Jewish intellectuals, especially one of Marxist sensibilities, made his writing career hopeless. In his excellent 1997 account of Benjamin’s life, Walter Benjamin. Witt quotes Benjamin as writing, “…The terror directed at any attitude or mode of expression that does not completely correspond to the official one has reached a virtually unsurpassable level…” And so, Benjamin was forced into exile and went in 1933 to Paris where the “Work of Art” essay was written. Instead of taking a pilgrimage to view a sacred relic, the “pilgrim” of Benjamin’s time had only to turn the page of an art magazine to view a work of art. After the emergence of Pop Art in the 1960s, the work of Benjamin was recontextualized and distorted to fit into Pop’s use of ready-made imagery. Works of art are now valued on two different criteria. By calling attention to the inherent artificiality of mass entertainment, Brecht hoped to challenge the bourgeois dominance of the social discourse. Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Also know as The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, this essay by Walter Benjamin has been published in three different versions. Film inherently tended to dissipate “aura” but Benjamin balanced losses against gains and the possibility of positive results. Indeed, in the early years of the Frankfurt School, the scholars did empirical studies which revealed that the masses were inherently passive and uninterested in rising up politically to help themselves through political revolution. It is possible he would have delighted in the openness of the World Wide Web and would have been thrilled at the emergence of the “Arab Spring” via cell phone and blogging, but he would have grieved at television being appropriated by corporate interests, which use the concept of “news” to manipulate and dominate the masses. The violation of the masses, which Fascism, with its Fuehrer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus, which is pressed into the production of ritual values. Summary of Walter Benjamin's essay, " The of art in the age of mechanical reproduction".. (2003, December 07).

Benjamin agreed to having the essay shortened. Kracauer, like Benjamin, had a Neo-Kantian background and was one of the intellectual pioneers in formulating a theory for film, a new art form and a new form of mass media. Summary. Water Benjamin has shown the manipulation of masses by the politicians through various forms of art. These objects defied the traditions of art, especially the required aura. We all own the Mona Lisa. The gaze becomes a quick and casual look. In other words, the antique “attentiveness” was, in modern times, disrupted by the effects of mass reproduction of images, requiring little more than a passing glance. He also saw the danger that aesthetics and politics could be linked to war: Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. Web. ― Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: An Influential Essay of Cultural Criticism; the History and Theory of Art tags: cameraman , enchantment , equipment , painter , reality , technology By then, art history books and reproduction of works of art was commonplace, but, in the Thirties, when this use of reproductive technology was in its infancy, and Benjamin was concerned about the fate of art. Witt points out that “As one of the pioneers in this new medium, he may have gained here the experiences that enabled him, in the great essays written in exile, to formulate a theory of non-auratic art.”  According to Witt, Benjamin thought that he could provoke his listener to counter the “consumer mentality” of the listener’s passivity and that he hoped to create a model for the “people’s art.” Rather than protest or mourn his loss, however, Baudelaire’s angel accepts his fallen condition “into the mire of the macadam.” By resigning himself in this way, the poem registers an awareness that the traditional artwork or poem could no longer claim a unique value, and that aesthetic authenticity – in this case, the elevated status of lyric poetry – had become incompatible with modern experience, whose transformation, Benjamin argues, was inseparable from the domination of life by the commodity, and the disfiguration of social relations by the dynamics of capitalist production. Much has been made of the fact that, when it was originally published in 1936 by the exiled Frankfurt School, publishing in German in their new home in New York City, the essay was shortened. The production of art began with objects designed for use in a cult. If you have found this material useful, please give credit to Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed. | Site designed by, Le Corbusier: The Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau. Benjamin agreed to having the essay shortened. | Site designed by, Le Corbusier: The Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau. “In short, in contrast to the magician - who is still hidden in the medical practitioner – the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him. The history of every art form shows critical epochs in which a certain art form aspires to effects which could be fully obtained only with a changed technical standard, that is to say, in a new art form. All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war…Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system. Loss of authenticity or aura destroys the very “rootedness” of art. Like his colleague, Bertold Brecht, he hoped that cinema, as a mass media, could, and would be an instrument to awaken the masses. An Intellectual Biography, Bernd Witt explained that the writer understood quite well the precarious position of the exiled Marxist Jews in a nation that, on a good day, was barely tolerant of Jews and terrified of the Communists. Can art exist without “aura?” The question for Benjamin is where and when did the status of auratic art begin to decay? Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed. Refresh and try again. Years later, greatly indebted to Benjamin’s ideas, Theodor Adorno would write of a dominate “culture industry” that served to support the prevailing belief system. It is easier to display a painting rather than a fresco or mosaic. He defined “aura” as that which is generated by and from the work of art when it functioned as a cult object within ritual due to the distance between the relic and the worshiper. This is evidently the consummation of “l’art pour l’art.” Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Benjamin’s essay needs to be understood within this cultural context. If you have found this material useful, please give credit to The mechanical reproduction is more independent from the original in that the producer has many choices in lighting, lens, angle, scale etc. For this purpose, he has given the example of Eugene Atget, who had transformed the empty streets into crime scenes through his camera. The technique of mechanical reproduction separates it from the traditions of the original. Error rating book.

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