The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 1935
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 fine art in a capitalist club.
"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 age of mechanical reproduction and the absenteeism of traditional and ritualistic value, the product of 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 fine art" in a mass-culture guild.[2]
The subject and themes of Benjamin's essay: the aura of a work of art; the artistic actuality of the artefact; its cultural say-so; and the aestheticization of politics for the production of fine art, became resources for enquiry in the fields of art history and architectural theory, cultural studies and media theory.[3]
The original essay, "The Piece of work of Fine art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility", was published in 3 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 (three) the German revised edition in 1939, from which derive the contemporary English translations of the essay titled "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".[iv]
Summary [edit]
In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) Walter Benjamin presents the thematic basis for a theory of fine 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 gimmicky works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to empathise a work of art in the context of the modernistic time.
Our fine arts were adult, their types and uses were established, in times very unlike from the nowadays, by men whose power of activeness upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. Merely the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, brand information technology a certainty that profound changes are impending in the aboriginal craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which tin can no longer be considered or treated as information technology used to exist, which cannot remain unaffected past our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor infinite nor fourth dimension has been what information technology was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the unabridged technique of the arts, thereby affecting creative invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.[5]
Creative production [edit]
In the Preface, Benjamin presents Marxist analyses of the organisation of a capitalist lodge and establishes the identify of the arts in the public sphere and in the private sphere. He and then explains the socio-economic weather to extrapolate developments that farther the economic exploitation of the proletariat, whence arise the social conditions that would cancel capitalism. Benjamin explains that the reproduction of art is not an exclusively modern act, citing examples such equally 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 and the stamp mill in Ancient Greece; and the modern arts of woodcut relief-printing, engraving, carving, lithography, and photography, all of which are techniques of mass production that permit greater accurateness in reproducing a work of fine art.[6]
Authenticity [edit]
The aura of a work of fine art derives from actuality (uniqueness) and locale (concrete and cultural); Benjamin explains that "fifty-fifty the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is defective in 1 element: Its presence in fourth dimension and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to exist" located. He writes that the "sphere of [creative] authenticity is outside the technical [sphere]" of mechanised reproduction.[7] 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 artful value of the original piece of work of fine art. In that way, the aura—the unique aesthetic 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 up out; with one, the accent is on the cult 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 presume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view."[9] The cult value of religious art is that "sure statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain madonnas remain covered well-nigh all year 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 every bit art created for the spectators' appreciation, because "it is easier to showroom a portrait bust, that can be sent hither 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 work of art voids its cult value, because removal from a fixed, private infinite (a temple) and placement in mobile, public space (a museum) allows exhibiting the art to many spectators.[12] Farther 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."[thirteen] In emphasising exhibition value, "the piece of work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions," which "later may be recognized equally incidental" to the original purpose for which the artist created the Objet d'fine art.[14]
As a medium of artistic production, the picture palace (moving pictures) does not create cult value for the moving picture, itself, because "the audition's identification with the thespian is really an identification with the photographic camera. Consequently, the audience takes the position of the camera; its arroyo is that of testing. This is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed." Therefore, "the flick makes the cult value recede into the background, not simply by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that, at the movies, this [critical] position requires no attention."[15]
Art as politics [edit]
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 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, besides."[vii] Despite the socio-cultural effects of mass-produced, reproduction-art upon the aureola of the original work of art, Benjamin said that "the uniqueness of a work of fine art is inseparable from its being 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 too emancipated "the work of fine art from its parasitical dependence on ritual,"[7] thereby increasing the social value of exhibiting works of art, which practice progressed from the individual sphere of life, the owner's enjoyment of the aesthetics of the artefacts (usually Loftier Art), to the public sphere of life, wherein the public enjoy the same aesthetics in an art gallery.
Influence [edit]
In the belatedly-twentieth-century tv set plan Means of Seeing (1972), John Berger proceeded from and developed the themes of "The Piece of work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), to explicate the contemporary representations of social class and racial caste inherent to the politics and production of art. That in transforming a work of art into a commodity, the modern means of artistic production and of creative reproduction accept destroyed the aesthetic, cultural, and political authority of art: "For the first time ever, images of art have get ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, bachelor, valueless, free," considering they are commercial products that lack the aureola of authenticity of the original objet d'art.[xvi]
See also [edit]
- Aestheticization of politics
- Art for art's sake
References [edit]
- ^ Elliott, Brian. Benjamin for Architects (2011) Routledge, London, p. 0000.
- ^ Scannell, Paddy. (2003) "Benjamin Contextualized: On 'The Work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction'" in Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are At that place Any? Should At that place Be? How About These?, Katz et al. (Eds.) Polity Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9780745629346. pp. 74–89.
- ^ Elliott, Brian. Benjamin for Architects, Routledge, London, 2011.
- ^ Notes on Walter Benjamin, "The Piece of work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", a commentary by Gareth Griffiths, Aalto University, 2011. [ permanent dead link ]
- ^ Paul Valéry, La Conquête de l'ubiquité (1928)
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Piece of work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 01.
- ^ 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–eighteen. ISBN9781407085500.
- ^ Hansen, Miriam Bratu (2008). "Benjamin'due south Aura," Critical Research No. 34 (Winter 2008)
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. four.
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Historic period of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
- ^ "Cult vs. Exhibition, Section II". Samizdat Online. 2016-07-20. Retrieved 2020-05-22 .
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 4.
- ^ Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) p. 5–6.
- ^ 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, "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 (in German)
- Fractional text of the essay, with commentary by Detlev Schöttker (in German language)
- A comment to the essay on "diségno"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction
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