The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Penguin Great Ideas)

When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image. As a result its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings.

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

In his justly celebrated essay, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin sets forth the idea, now almost commonplace, that the copying and disseminating of, say, a painting robs it of its aura. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique ex

as originally pointed out by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin in his seminal essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” is that by removing something from its original context or setting, we kill the sense of awe that we might attach to its uniqueness. Great works of art were once intrinsically a part of their settings.