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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction
IV
The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable
from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself
is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. An ancient statue of Venus,
for example, stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks,
who made it an object of veneration, than with the clerics of the Middle
Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them, however, were equally
confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura. Originally the contextual
integration of art in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know
that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual - first
the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence
of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated
from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the 'authentic'
work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value.
This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized
ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty. The secular
cult of beauty, developed during the Renaissance and prevailing for three
centuries, clearly showed that ritualistic basis in its decline and the
first deep crisis which befell it. With the advent of the first truly revolutionary
means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism,
art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later.
At the time, art reacted with the doctrine of l'art pour l'art,
that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called
a negative theology in the form of the idea of 'pure' art, which not only
denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject
matter. (In poetry, Mallarmé was the first to take this position.)
An analysis of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to
an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical
reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence
on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes
the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative,
for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the 'authentic'
print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases
to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed.
Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice
- politics. |