Assignment 013: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he discusses mass production and reproduction of artwork throughout different eras and it’s affect on auras.  Benjamin goes into discussing the idea of reproduction in certain art forms stripping the “creativity and genius” from the work, while in other areas (such as photography) it in fact has no impact, and is crucial to the aura to be felt by a larger audience.

 Production has been crucial in bringing art into the modern world, even though art has technically always been able to be reproduced, mechanical reproduction has brought about a larger variety of what is possible.  Any man could have attempted a replica of any work of art, but until mechanical reproduction nothing could have been exact.  The Greeks used reproduction in founding and stamping.  The only works of art that they were able to reproduce were terra cottas, bronzes, and coins.  While this was definitely a step in the write direction, it does not shine a light to what we are now capable of.

The idea of mechanical reproduction literally brought about photography.  It changed the way art was looked at, and how art was created.  “For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions, which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens.”

The idea of aura is best explained when brought into a personal experience.  For me (and seemingly Benjamin as well), aura is most well experienced during an event.  He used the description of mountains, but I have felt the aura rising from a beautiful sunset over the ocean.  The serene, powerful moment that is felt is a piece of art in itself and doesn’t seem like it could ever fully be reproduced.  Except, that is, in photography.  The idea of mechanical reproduction does nothing negative to the photographic world.  The aura felt when looking at a photograph can be felt by however many viewers all over the world, never prohibited by the idea that that photograph may not be the original one.

“In photography it doesn’t matter which print was made, all will have the same aura

It is no accident that the portrait was the focal point of early photography. The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. “