The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin
Benjamin wrote the essay in 1935. Its first appearance in print was a French translation in the Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung in 1936, and the German text was not printed until the Gesammelte Schriften in 1955, so the catalogued 1935 is the year of composition rather than of any publication. The argument is that reproduction strips the artwork of its aura and pushes art from ritual towards politics. The link is to the Penguin Great Ideas edition.
Why you should read this
Benjamin argues that mechanical reproduction strips a work of art of its aura, its unique presence in time and place, and that this loss shifts art's social function from ritual toward politics. Foundational text in media theory, cited whenever the conversation turns to what mass reproduction does to meaning and authenticity.
- Field
- Art History
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1936
- Themes
- AestheticsArt History
