The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility Summary

1935 essay by Walter Benjamin

In "The Work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), Walter Benjamin addresses the artistic and cultural, social, economic, and political functions of art in a capitalist lodge.

"The Work of Fine 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'art.^[1] That in the historic period of mechanical reproduction and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics. Written during the Nazi régime (1933–1945) in Frg, Benjamin's essay presents a theory of fine art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a mass-culture society.^[2]

The field of study and themes of Benjamin'south essay: the aura of a work of fine art; the creative authenticity of the artefact; its cultural authority; and the aestheticization of politics for the production of art, became resources for research in the fields of art history and architectural theory, cultural studies and media theory.^[3]

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; (ii) the French edition, L'œuvre d'art à fifty'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée, in 1936; and (iii) the German language revised edition in 1939, from which derive the gimmicky English language translations of the essay titled "The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."^[4]

Summary [edit]

In "The Work of Fine 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), by Paul Valéry, to found how works of fine art created and adult in past eras are different from contemporary works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to empathize a work of fine art in the context of the modern time.

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very dissimilar from the nowadays, by men whose ability of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the aboriginal craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts in that location is a physical component which tin no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our mod knowledge and power. For the last 20 years neither thing nor infinite nor time has been what information technology was from time immemorial. We must wait great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting creative invention itself and maybe fifty-fifty bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of fine art.^[v]

Artistic production [edit]

In the Preface, Benjamin presents Marxist analyses of the organisation of a capitalist social club and establishes the place of the arts in the public sphere and in the private sphere. He then explains the socio-economic conditions to extrapolate developments that further the economic exploitation of the proletariat, whence arise the social weather condition that would abolish capitalism. Benjamin explains that the reproduction of art is not an exclusively modernistic human activeness, citing examples such as artists manually copying the work of a principal artist. Benjamin reviews the historical and technological developments of the ways for the mechanical reproduction of art, and their furnishings upon society'due south valuation of a piece of work of art. These developments include the industrial arts of the foundry and the stamp mill in Ancient Greece; and the modernistic arts of woodcut relief-printing, engraving, etching, lithography, and photography, all of which are techniques of mass product that allow greater accuracy in reproducing a work of art.^[6]

Actuality [edit]

The aureola of a work of art derives from actuality (uniqueness) and locale (physical and cultural); Benjamin explains that "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in i chemical element: Its presence in fourth dimension and space, its unique existence 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 fine art is an objet d'fine art independent of the mechanically accurate reproduction; yet, 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 fine art. In that way, the aura — the unique artful authority of a work of art — is absent from the mechanically produced copy.^[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 out; with one, the emphasis is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic product begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their beingness on view."^[9] The cult value of religious fine art is that "sure statues of gods are attainable only to the priest in the cella; certain madonnas remain covered near all year circular; sure 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 be sent here and in that location [to museums], than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple."^[eleven]

The mechanical reproduction of a work of 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 art to many spectators.^[12] Further explaining the transition from cult value to exhibition value, Benjamin said that in "the photographic paradigm, exhibition value, for the start time, shows its superiority to cult value."^[xiii] In emphasising exhibition value, "the work of fine art becomes a cosmos with entirely new functions," which "later may be recognized as incidental" to the original purpose for which the artist created the Objet d'fine art.^[fourteen]

As a medium of creative production, the cinema (moving pictures) does not create cult value for the motility movie, itself, because "the audience's identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently, the audience takes the position of the photographic camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not the arroyo to which cult values may be exposed." Therefore, "the picture makes the cult value recede into the background, non simply past putting the public in the position of the critic, but too by the fact that, at the movies, this [critical] position requires no attending."^[15]

Art as politics [edit]

The social value of a work of fine art changes as a society change their value systems; thus the changes in artistic styles and in the cultural tastes of the public follow "the manner in which human being sense-perception is organized [and] the [creative] medium in which it is accomplished, [which are] determined not only by Nature, but past historical circumstances, as well."^[7] Despite the socio-cultural furnishings of mass-produced, reproduction-art upon the aura of the original work of art, Benjamin said that "the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its beingness embedded in the fabric of tradition," which separates the original work of fine art from the reproduction.^[vii] That the ritualization of the mechanical reproduction of art also emancipated "the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual,"^[7] thereby increasing the social value of exhibiting works of art, which practice progressed from the private sphere of life, the owner's enjoyment of the aesthetics of the artefacts (usually High Fine art), to the public sphere of life, wherein the public enjoy the aforementioned aesthetics in an fine art gallery.

Influence [edit]

In the late-twentieth-century television receiver program Means of Seeing (1972), John Berger proceeded from and developed the themes of "The Work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), to explicate the gimmicky representations of social class and racial caste inherent to the politics and production of art. That in transforming a piece of work of art into a article, the modern ways of artistic production and of artistic reproduction take destroyed the aesthetic, cultural, and political authority of art: "For the first time e'er, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, bachelor, valueless, free," because they are commercial products that lack the aureola of authenticity of the original objet d'art.^[sixteen]

Meet as well [edit]

• Aestheticization of politics
• Art for art's sake

References [edit]

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

External links [edit]

• Complete text of the essay, translated
• Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1932-1941) - Download the original text in French, "L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction méchanisée," in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung Jahrgang Five, Félix Alcan, Paris, 1936, pp. 40–68 (23MB)
• Consummate text in German (in German)
• Partial text of the essay, with commentary past Detlev Schöttker (in German language)
• 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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