The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Film Aura

1935 essay by Walter Benjamin

In "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), Walter Benjamin addresses the artistic and cultural, social, economic, and political functions of art in a capitalist society.

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes and explains that mechanical reproduction devalues the aura (uniqueness) of an objet d'fine art.^[1] That in the age of mechanical reproduction and the absenteeism of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of fine art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics. Written during the Nazi régime (1933–1945) in Germany, Benjamin's essay presents a theory of art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a mass-civilisation society.^[2]

The field of study and themes of Benjamin's essay: the aura of a work of art; the artistic authenticity of the artefact; its cultural authority; and the aestheticization of politics for the production of art, became resource for inquiry in the fields of art history and architectural theory, cultural studies and media theory.^[three]

The original essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility," was published in three editions: (i) the High german edition, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, in 1935; (2) the French edition, Fifty'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée, in 1936; and (iii) the German revised edition in 1939, from which derive the contemporary English translations of the essay titled "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."^[four]

Summary [edit]

In "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) Walter Benjamin presents the thematic basis for a theory of art past quoting the essay "The Conquest of Ubiquity" (1928), past Paul Valéry, to establish how works of art created and adult in past eras are unlike from contemporary works of fine art; that the understanding and handling of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to understand a work of art in the context of the modern fourth dimension.

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, past men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. Only the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they accept attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make information technology a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a concrete component which tin no longer be considered or treated equally it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last xx years neither matter nor space nor fourth dimension has been what information technology was from time immemorial. Nosotros must expect great innovations to transform the unabridged technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and peradventure even bringing about an amazing modify in our very notion of art.^[5]

Artistic production [edit]

In the Preface, Benjamin presents Marxist analyses of the organisation of a capitalist society and establishes the place of the arts in the public sphere and in the private sphere. He and so explains the socio-economic weather condition to extrapolate developments that farther the economic exploitation of the proletariat, whence arise the social conditions that would abolish commercialism. Benjamin explains that the reproduction of art is not an exclusively modern human action, citing examples such as artists manually copying the work of a master creative person. Benjamin reviews the historical and technological developments of the means for the mechanical reproduction of art, and their effects upon society's valuation of a work of art. These developments include the industrial arts of the foundry and the postage factory in Aboriginal Greece; and the modern arts of woodcut relief-press, engraving, etching, lithography, and photography, all of which are techniques of mass product that permit greater accurateness in reproducing a work of art.^[6]

Authenticity [edit]

The aureola of a work of fine art derives from authenticity (uniqueness) and locale (concrete and cultural); Benjamin explains that "even the well-nigh perfect reproduction of a piece of work of art is defective in 1 element: Its presence in time and space, its unique beingness at the place where it happens to be" located. He writes that the "sphere of [artistic] actuality is outside the technical [sphere]" of mechanised reproduction.^[7] Therefore, the original piece of work of art is an objet d'art independent of the mechanically accurate reproduction; even so, by changing the cultural context of where the artwork is located, the beingness of the mechanical copy diminishes the aesthetic value of the original work of art. In that way, the aura — the unique aesthetic potency of a work of fine art — is absent from the mechanically produced re-create.^[8]

Value: cult and exhibition [edit]

Regarding the social functions of an artefact, Benjamin said that "Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand up out; with ane, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Creative production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. 1 may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their existence on view."^[nine] The cult value of religious fine art is that "sure statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain madonnas remain covered virtually all twelvemonth round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level."^[10] In practice, the diminished cult value of a religious artefact (an icon no longer venerated) increases the artefact's exhibition value as art created for the spectators' appreciation, because "it is easier to exhibit a portrait bust, that can exist sent here and there [to museums], than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple."^[11]

The mechanical reproduction of a piece of work of fine art voids its cult value, because removal from a fixed, private space (a temple) and placement in mobile, public space (a museum) allows exhibiting the fine art to many spectators.^[12] Further explaining the transition from cult value to exhibition value, Benjamin said that in "the photographic image, exhibition value, for the commencement time, shows its superiority to cult value."^[13] In emphasising exhibition value, "the piece of work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions," which "after may be recognized every bit incidental" to the original purpose for which the artist created the Objet d'art.^[fourteen]

As a medium of artistic production, the cinema (moving pictures) does not create cult value for the picture show, itself, because "the audience'southward identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently, the audition takes the position of the camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not the arroyo to which cult values may be exposed." Therefore, "the moving-picture show makes the cult value recede into the groundwork, non just by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that, at the movies, this [disquisitional] position requires no attending."^[xv]

Art equally politics [edit]

The social value of a work of art changes as a guild change their value systems; thus the changes in artistic styles and in the cultural tastes of the public follow "the style in which human sense-perception is organized [and] the [creative] medium in which information technology is accomplished, [which are] adamant non only by Nature, but by historical circumstances, as well."^[7] Despite the socio-cultural furnishings of mass-produced, reproduction-art upon the aura of the original work of fine art, Benjamin said that "the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being embedded in the cloth of tradition," which separates the original work of art from the reproduction.^[seven] That the ritualization of the mechanical reproduction of art also emancipated "the piece of work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual,"^[seven] thereby increasing the social value of exhibiting works of art, which practise progressed from the individual sphere of life, the possessor's enjoyment of the aesthetics of the artefacts (unremarkably Loftier Fine art), to the public sphere of life, wherein the public enjoy the same aesthetics in an fine art gallery.

Influence [edit]

In the late-twentieth-century television programme Ways of Seeing (1972), John Berger proceeded from and adult the themes of "The Work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), to explain the contemporary representations of social form and racial caste inherent to the politics and product of art. That in transforming a work of fine art into a commodity, the modern means of artistic product and of artistic reproduction have destroyed the aesthetic, cultural, and political authority of art: "For the first time ever, images of art accept get imperceptible, ubiquitous, insubstantial, bachelor, valueless, free," because they are commercial products that lack the aura of authenticity of the original objet d'art.^[xvi]

See also [edit]

• Aestheticization of politics
• Art for art'south sake

References [edit]

1. ^ Elliott, Brian. Benjamin for Architects (2011) Routledge, London, p. 0000.
2. ^ Scannell, Paddy. (2003) "Benjamin Contextualized: On 'The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,'" in Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are There Whatsoever? Should In that location Be? How About These?, Katz et al. (Eds.) Polity Printing, Cambridge. ISBN 9780745629346. pp. 74–89.
3. ^ Elliott, Brian. Benjamin for Architects, Routledge, London, 2011.
4. ^ Notes on Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", a commentary by Gareth Griffiths, Aalto Academy, 2011. ^{[ permanent expressionless link ]}
5. ^ Paul Valéry, La Conquête de fifty'ubiquité (1928)
6. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Fine art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 01.
7. ^ ^{a b c d} Walter Benjamin (1968). Hannah Arendt (ed.). "The Piece of work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction," Illuminations . London: Fontana. pp. 214–18. ISBN9781407085500.
8. ^ Hansen, Miriam Bratu (2008). "Benjamin's Aura," Critical Inquiry No. 34 (Winter 2008)
9. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
10. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. four.
11. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Piece of work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. iv.
12. ^ "Cult vs. Exhibition, Section II". Samizdat Online. 2016-07-20. Retrieved 2020-05-22 .
13. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
14. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
15. ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Fine art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 5–6.
16. ^ Berger, John. Means of Seeing. Penguin Books, London, 1972, pp. 32–34.

External links [edit]

• Consummate text of the essay, translated
• Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1932-1941) - Download the original text in French, "Fifty'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction méchanisée," in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung Jahrgang Five, Félix Alcan, Paris, 1936, pp. xl–68 (23MB)
• Complete text in German (in High german)
• Fractional text of the essay, with commentary by Detlev Schöttker (in German)
• A comment to the essay on "diségno"

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction

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