The work of fine art in the age of mechanical reproduction

Quotes

Walter Benjamin, "The Piece of work of Fine art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations, pp. 217 – 254 (37 pp.)

  • They (concepts on art and production)  are, on the other mitt, useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of fine art. p218
  • Since the heart perceives more than swiftly then the hand can draw, the procedure of pictorial reproduction was accelerated and so it normal slumber that it could keep pace with speech. p219
  • Even the most perfect reproduction of a piece of work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, information technology's unique essence at the place where information technology happens to be. Page 220
  • The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. Page 220
  • Technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would exist out of reach for the original itself. Above all, information technology enables the original to come across the beholder halfway, it in the form of a photo or phonographic record. p221
  • What my surmise the illuminated element in the term "aureola" and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of fine art. Page 221
  • During long periods of history, the manner of man sense perception changes with humanity's entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it was accomplished, is determined non only past nature but by historical circumstances as well. Page 222
  • Namely, the want of contemporary masses to bring things "closer" spatially and humanly, which is just equally ardent as their aptitude toward overcoming that uniqueness of every reality past excepting it's reproduction. Every twenty-four hours that urged grows stronger to get agree of an object very close range by mode of it'due south like this, it's reproduction. … To pry an object from its shell, to destroy it's for, is the mark of a perception who's "sense of the universal equality of things" has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. The adjustment of reality to the masses and the of the masses to reality is a process of a limited telescopic, as much for thinking every bit for perception. Folio 223
  • The unique value of the "authentic" work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. Page 224
  • Just the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of fine art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to exist based on another practise – politics. Page 224
  • Works of fine art are received and valued on different planes. To polar types stand out: with one, the emphasis is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Page 2 to 4
  • The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the concluding fourth dimension the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a homo confront.… But as human withdraws from the photographic image, the exhibition value for the start time shows at superiority to the ritual values. Page 226
  • When the historic period of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in the cult, the semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. Page 226