"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...

, is an essay of

cultural criticism Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.T ...

which proposes and explains that mechanical reproduction devalues the ''aura'' (uniqueness) of an ''

objet d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

''. That in the age 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 Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

(1933–1945) in Germany, Benjamin's essay presents a

theory of art A theory of art is intended to contrast with a definition of art. Traditionally, ''definitions'' are composed of necessary and sufficient conditions and a single counterexample overthrows such a definition. ''Theorizing'' about art, on the other ...

that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a mass-culture society. The subject 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 The aestheticization of politics was an idea first coined by Walter Benjamin as being a key ingredient to fascist regimes. Benjamin said that fascism tends towards an aestheticization of politics, in the sense of a spectacle in which it allows the m ...

for the production of art, became resources for research in the fields of

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

and

architectural theory Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

and

media theory Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but most ...

. The original essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility", was published in three editions: (i) the German edition, ''Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit'', in 1935; (ii) the French edition, ''L'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".

Summary

In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) Walter Benjamin presents the thematic basis for a theory of art by quoting the essay "The Conquest of Ubiquity" (1928), by Paul Valéry, to establish how works of art created and developed 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 understand a work of art in the context of the modern time.

Artistic production

In the Preface, Benjamin presents Marxist analyses of the organisation of a

capitalist society Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...

and establishes the place of

the arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

in the

public sphere The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the ...

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 conditions that would abolish capitalism. Benjamin explains that the reproduction of art is not an exclusively modern human activity, citing examples such as artists manually copying the work of a master artist. 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 A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

and the

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operati ...

in Ancient Greece; and the modern arts of woodcut relief-printing,

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

, and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

, all of which are techniques of

mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

that permit greater accuracy in reproducing a work of art.

Authenticity

The ''aura'' of a work of art derives from authenticity (uniqueness) and locale (physical and cultural); Benjamin explains that "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be" located. He writes that the "sphere of rtistic authenticity is outside the technical phere of mechanised reproduction. Therefore, the original work of art is an ''objet d'art'' independent of the mechanically accurate reproduction; yet, by changing the cultural context of where the artwork is located, the existence of the mechanical copy diminishes the aesthetic value of the original work of art. In that way, the ''aura''the unique aesthetic authority of a work of artis absent from the mechanically produced copy.

Value: cult and exhibition

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 accent is on the

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view." The cult value of

religious art Religious art is artistic imagery using religious inspiration and motifs and is often intended to uplift the mind to the spiritual. Sacred art involves the ritual and cultic practices and practical and operative aspects of the path of the spiritu ...

is that "certain statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the

cella A cella (from Latin for small chamber) or naos (from the Greek ναός, "temple") is the inner chamber of an ancient Greek or Roman temple in classical antiquity. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings, of a hermit's or ...

; certain madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level." In practice, the diminished cult value of a religious artefact (an

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...

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 there o museums than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple." 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. Further explaining the transition from cult value to exhibition value, Benjamin said that in "the photographic image, exhibition value, for the first time, shows its superiority to cult value." In emphasising exhibition value, "the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions," which "later may be recognized as incidental" to the original purpose for which the artist created the ''

Objet d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

''. As a medium of artistic production, the

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

(moving pictures) does not create cult value for the motion picture, itself, because "the audience's identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently, the audience takes the position of the camera; its approach is that of testing. This is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed." Therefore, "the film makes the cult value recede into the background, not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that, at the movies, this riticalposition requires no attention."

Art as politics

The social value of a work of 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 sense-perception is organized ndthe rtisticmedium in which it is accomplished,

hich are Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County Ijrud County ( fa, شهرستان ایجرود) is located in Zanjan province, Iran. The c ...

determined not only by Nature, but by historical circumstances, as well." Despite the socio-cultural effects of

mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

, 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 being embedded in the fabric of tradition," which separates the original work of art from the reproduction. That the ritualization of the mechanical reproduction of art also emancipated "the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual," 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 Art), to the

of life, wherein the public enjoy the same aesthetics in an art gallery.

Influence

In the late-twentieth-century television program '' Ways of Seeing'' (1972),

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

proceeded from and developed the themes of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), to explain the contemporary

representations ''Representations'' is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities published quarterly by the University of California Press. The journal was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism movement of the 1980s. It ...

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, inc ...

and racial caste inherent to the politics and production of art. That in transforming a work of art into a

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...

, the modern means of artistic production and of artistic reproduction have destroyed the

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

, cultural, and political

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''T ...

of art: "For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free," because they are commercial products that lack the ''aura'' of authenticity of the original ''

''.Berger, John. ''Ways of Seeing''. Penguin Books, London, 1972, pp. 32–34.

References

External links

Complete text of the essay, translated
(

Marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich En ...

)
Complete text of the essay, translated
(

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

.edu)
''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 V, Félix Alcan, Paris, 1936, pp. 40–68 (23MB)

Complete text in German

Partial text of the essay
with commentary by Detlev Schöttker
A comment to the essay on "diségno"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction Social philosophy Aesthetics literature 1936 essays Essays in literary theory Works about avant-garde and experimental art Works by Walter Benjamin Contemporary philosophical literature Books in philosophy of technology