ISSN 0007-0904

VOLUME 33

NUMBER 4

OCTOBER 1993

_S

British journal of Aesthetics,

I'd.

u, No. j, October i g g f

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WALTER BENJAMIN AND THE

MECHANICAL REPRODUCIBILITY OF
ART WORKS REVISITED
Ian Kmzek

T HERE AR E essays which seem to have a perennial life; they are quoted again
and again in spite o f their questionable premisses. 'The Work of Art in the
Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility' 1 by Walter Benjamin is one of them.
This is hard to explain because its main thesis is so obviously flawed. None
,<
the less its very title is so challengingly and provocatively intriguing that it
i;;
!
invites d wellin g o n . Fu rther mo re, Benja min can al wa ys be co unted on to

:
p ro vid e a catch y tu rn o f ph rase, and it has behind it the not inconsiderable
'l<
prestige of a gifted literary critic enhanced by the halo of martyrdom as victim
!;!
of Nazism's anti-semitic fury.
,];
It is eas y to let o n esel f b e s ed uced b y the flow o f Benj a min's orator y to
jjj
accept his main postulate that mechanical reproduction destroys the aura of
works of art. I have myself expressed my disagreement with some of its tenets
in a Spanish-language paper. 2 I was then mainly interested in the ontological
identity of Benjamin's Mechanical Reproductions because of his cavalier disregard of these categories. 1 I have subsequently re-read the two versions of
Benjamin's essay, this time in their original German 4 including the French
translation 3 and the accompanying copious 'observations'. 6
Nevertheless, in what follows I want to dwell once more on the key issues
of Benjamin's hypothesis, the art work's aura and particularly the mechanism
of its withering and final destruction as a consequence of mechanical reproduction. The first concept and its aesthetic relevance has always been questionable
but has been willy-nilly tolerated without much searching. As to the second
point of my inquiry, Benjamin never made it quite clear as to how or why
mechanical reproductions can extinguish the aura surrounding works of art.

I
For the proper understanding of the Benjaminian concept of aura, the knowledge of the conditions of its use by him are essential. The lexicographic
meaning is obviously of little use here. Fortunately, Benjamin himself explains
the meaning he intends to convey. First he introduces the concept of authenti Oxford University Press 1993

357

358

THE MECHANICAL REPRODUCIBIL1TY OF ART WORKS REVISITED

city, by which he means the 'essence of all that is transmissible from its
beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced' (WAAMR, p. 284). Unfortunately, however,
to clarify this concept of aura he only succeeded in blurring it through the
introduction of an allegory or metaphor meant to evoke, communicate or
stimulate a feeling putativcly adhering to the concepts quoted in the preceding
paragraph: 'the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be.
If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you
experience the aura of these mountains or that branch' (WAAMR, p. 285). In
spite of my initially sympathetic attitude to the Benjaminian concept of aura,
doubts about both its ontology and fitness for the purpose assigned to it by
Benjamin incr-eased. In general terms its existence as a psychological phenomenon can hardly be denied. It is its relevance in aesthetic apperception that is in
doubt. It seems that Theodor Adorno, Benjamin's colleague in the Frankfurt
School, was not quite happy with Benjamin's use of this term. It is significant
that immediately after quoting in toto his poetic allegory of the aura, he claims
that what Benjamin calls aura is something familiar to artistic experience.
And he identifies it with 'atmosphere',7 and later stresses 'its objective signification beyond all subjective intention'. This amounts in fact to a philosophical upgrading of Benjamin's poetic but unhelpful definition. He also anticipates possible objections to Benjamin's explanation of the appeal of art by
reference to that of nature; he identifies it as an element common to both, art
and nature (AT, p. 386). In the same context he stresses its 'fleeting and
elusive' character. A few lines later he clarifies his own understanding of aura
still more, claiming that it is 'an objective signification beyond all subjective
intentions'.
Since, however, some philosophers may wince at the idea of explaining the
appeal of art by reference to that of nature, Adorno helps out by claiming
that 'perceiving nature's aura means to become conscious of that quality in
nature which is the defining clement of a work of art' (AT, p. 386).

II

It is not to be doubted that Benjamin's kind of aura may actually enhance the
enjoyment of art for viewers so inclined. But I came to distrust Benjamin's
type of aura because it refers to something which is not in the work of art; it
is, indeed, an extra-aesthetic feature. It differs in many important aspects from
other imaginary products of contemplation of art works, as evocation and
associations which are normally triggered by something in them. Benjamin's
aura misleads and distracts the beholder from the true aesthetic values, formal,
compositional, tcxtural or structural and even from those that arc volitional,
i.e., attributable to the will of the artist.

IAN KNIZEK

35<J

Adorno might have felt something of the above. In an important passage

(AT, p. 66) he warns against the artificial superimposition of aura which
would amount to a falsification as happened so often with commercial film.
It should go without saying that if such superimposition happens in connection with pictorial art, for instance, it can reduce even the greatest works of
art to the category of entertainment.

Ill
For the proper understanding of Benjaminian aura, it is indispensable to discover its origin m his thoughts; in other words, we have to find the genesis
of his use of the term. Hopefully, this could also provide us with an answer
to the dilemma posed by the mechanism of the alleged withering and ultimate
disappearance of the aura.
We can hardly do better than to refer to an essay which Benjamin published
four years earlier (18 September 1931) under the title Little History of
Piwtography *

The concept of aura occurs for the first time almost exactly at the middle
point of the photographic essay. (KGP, p. 229.) Benjamin uses it here to
characterize the tragic mood of the nineteenth-century petit bourgeois salon
portraiture with all its ambience of false pretentiousness and ridiculous paraphernalia. Here, all references to aura are of pejorative nature and they clash
with the allegorical and poetic definition which Benjamin offers two pages
later (KGP, p. 239) and which he will four years later introduce into his
Reprodticibility essay. Subsequently, Benjamin identifies aura with the relative obscurity of these early photographs out of which, as he says, 'light makes
its way out only with some difficulty' (KGP, p. 237) as a consequence of
low-light intensity of the photographic lenses of that period. Benjamin then
proceeds to praise Atget's photography for having 'disinfected the sticky
atmosphere of the conventional portrait photography . . . he cleans this atmosphere: he prepares the liberation of the object from the aura' (KGP, p. 239).
This liberation consists inter alia in the exclusion of humanity from his views
of Parisian scenes. (KGP, p. 240.) 'Empty is the Port d'Arcueil, empty the
fatuous stairways, the courtyards, the cafe terraces . . . they are not lonely
but moodless'. What also seems meaningful to him is Atget's rejection of
images associated with the romantic music of city names.

IV
Contemplating Atgetian plates in the New York Museum of Modern Art
with all the attention they deserve, one is immediately tempted to dissent
from Benjamin's dictum, because it seems that Atget's photographs possess
something which they share with good paintings: this peculiar and ineffable

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THE MECHANICAL REPRODUCIB1LITY OF ART WORKS REVISITED

something which frequently confuses even sophisticated critics. Far from

depriving them of something as Benjamin claims, Atget imparts to his views
a quality which reality itself does not exhibit: the sometimes melancholic
mood, the feeling of solitude which is not loneliness, a certain halo of associations and evocations which only an artist can impart to inanimate objects.
And even the absence of human beings, which Benjamin correctly observes,
is a gain rather than a loss because it allows the observer to transport himself
to another dimension, unthought and devoid of human life.
In addition to all that, the Atgetian oeuvrc has acquired in the course of the
years an aura of its own and entirely fitting Benjamin's own characterization.
(WAAMR, p. 284.) By now they don't even lack authenticity which is an
obligatory component of Benjaminian aura, that is, if we are to consider
Atget's plates as works of art. But Benjamin has to deny that these plates
might have acquired an aura because the acceptance of such a view would be
fatal to his theory.

V
If Benjamin's concept of aura is vague and problem-ridden, the notion of its
withering (his term is verkiimmern, literally to become stunted, to languish) and
its ultimate destruction as a consequence of reproduction is nowhere explicated. It is the why and how this happens which Benjamin never makes clear.
He mentions it several times in the first half of his essay but he seems to take
it as a self-evident fact claiming, for instance, that aura withers in the age of
mechanical reproduction (because) the technique of reproduction detaches the
reproduced object from the domain of tradition. (WAAMR, pp. 284-285.)
Such and similar statements arc not very enlightening in the sense sought
above, even allowing for the fact that we quoted them out of context. He
comes considerably closer to providing a reason when he implies that (at least
in the eyes of some) the original art works might become 'cheapened' by
unbounded copying. (WAAMR, p. 285.)
One may easily think in this context of Gresham's law, of the devaluation
of currencies induced by uncontrolled operation of printing presses. Born in
} 892 Benjamin was old enough to experience the effects of this kind of inflation in post-World-War I Germany of the twenties which every day rendered
its currency practically worthless. But this psychological connection with the
alleged decay of the art work's aura appears to be too pat and indeed trivial,
and it might be unjust to attribute it to a man of Benjamin's intellectual
sophistication.
We have to grant to Benjamin that mechanical reproductions of works of
art may lack authenticity in the strict sense of his definitional allegory.
(WAAMR, p. 285.) But this is not true in the broader sense of his earlier
definition (WAAMR, p. 284) as 'all that is transmissible' including its perman-

IAN KNIZEK

361

ence and performance in history. Nor is there necessarily a conflict with

Adorno's common-scnsical identification of'aura' with 'atmosphere' (AT, p.
386) of works of art.
Such features are imaginary and not perceptual, nor are they regional qualities. Rather, they are communicated through oral tradition or art-historical
research. There is then no very good reason why even reproductions cannot
appropriate for themselves the features composing the work's 'authenticity'.
In other words, these features can be transmitted or transferred to reproductions by imagination.

VI
There is, however, an earlier clue to Benjamin's theory concerning the mechanism of de-aurating. It occurs in connection with his exaltation of Atget's
photographs and of their auratic lack. Especially meaningful is the statement
that Atget's images 'suck the aura of reality like water of a sinking ship'.
(KGP, p. 239.)
ft seems therefore that Benjamin could have easily arrived at his subsequent
and so far-reaching conclusions by extrapolating from his above subjective
judgement to generalize the putative de-aurating effect of photography as
reproductive process par excellence. Unfortunately for Benjamin, he does not
stop to entertain another and much more plausible alternative: conceding for
the moment the claim that there has indeed been a loss of aura in Atget's
transposition of the reality of certain city streets to his photographs, it was
hisv""Atget's, wilful setting of the stage, i.e., exclusion of humanity or shunning city names (KGP, p. 240) and not the photography or the act of photographing that caused it.
There are no indications at the present time that the surge of mechanical
reproductions has affected in any way the western cultural heritage. And
curiously Benjamin himself provides some of the arguments to support the
view that interest in great historical works of art should not decline as a
consequence of mechanical multiplication but on the contrary is bound to
flourish. (KGP, pp. 229 ff.)
We are perfectly aware of the fact that in times both long and not so long
past, humanity at large has had few opportunities to contemplate and interiorize many of the great works of pictorial art, owing to their sequestration in
museums and private collections spread over widely separate and generally
privileged areas not easily accessible to all.
What adds to this disabling difficulty is the existence of thousands of canvases and fresco paintings decorating dark walls of blackened and distant
vaults of innumerable churches and palaces, as well as rupestrial cave drawings, usually badly illuminated; here geographic inaccessibility is compounded
with visual unapproachability.

We have to assume that the majority of art lovers get to know their works
of art almost exclusively through their mechanical reproductions. And the
enormous proliferation of art books and reproductions easily demonstrable
through the existence of a l l those bookshops which today constitute an obligatory premium adjoining expositions, galleries or museums, testify to the
increased interest in or consciousness of art, even if we cannot possibly vouch
for a simultaneous enhancement of aesthetic sensibility. We may, indeed,
speak of popularization through reproduction for which Benjamin himself
provides a partial explication. He takes for granted that it is easier to grasp a
painting, a sculpture and above all a work of architecture through a photograph. (KGP, p. 243.)
This is particularly true of pictorial works of large dimensions, both murals
and vault decorations, which are hard to grasp and comprehend by means of
a single undeviating glance, whereas scanning, which is necessarily involved
in viewing large expanses of paint, loses the perception of continuity. What
Benjamin claims here is undoubtedly true: that photographic reproductions
are indissolubly linked with size reduction of the image which assists men to
gain a dominion over the art work without which they could have had no
use for it. It might be difficult to visualize a painting so abstruse as to require
a mastery over it. We may accept the first half of Benjamin's statement without having to go along with the second. Significant and readily acceptable
is his denial that the improved apprehendabihty of art works through their
photographs as compared with a direct examination of the real thing, could
be owing to a decay of aesthetic sensibility of contemporary humanity.
Although this last part of Benjamin's thesis is in general terms plausible, it
is not easy to square it with the main postulate of the Reproducibility essay.
Because photographic reproductions of art works facilitate their grasp and
apprehension, their final effect should be one of making them more accessible
and therefore enhance their universal appeal. This differs signally from the
main conclusion of the Reproducibility text. We have to accept that while
some of the conclusions of Little History of Photography' help us to clarify
certain obscure points of the Reproducibility text, there are others that make
this task more difficult. Obviously, Walter Benjamin was not always a consistent thinker.

VII
An important feature connected with Benjamin's Reproducibility thesis is his
disdain for photography as art or, better to say, his reluctance to concede to
photography the category of art. Jerome Stolnitz (p. 346) has revealed Benjamin's overall strategy: 'Deflate the value of high art for aesthetic experience
and all the other economia come tumbling down . . . (liquidated) without

further effort'.'' In a similar fashion, Benjamin has to devalue photography,

namely deny it the status of art because otherwise he would experience difficulties in grounding his mam argument that reproduction, i . e . , photography
in this case, strips works of art of their aura and devalues them.
The development of this thought can be traced to the 'Little History of
Photography'. Here (page 229) and in the context of the discussion of the
aesthetic value of the discipline in question, he contrasts the Art of Photography
with Art as Photography. And he extols the value of art works' reproductions
for their function in art and attributes to them greater importance than to
Art Photography. He dismisses this contemptuously 'as more or less artistic
confection'.
And on the next page cites, with obvious satisfaction, part of Baudelaire's
statement of 1875 that photography 'must return to its essential task to be the
servant to the Arts and Sciences'. (KGP, p. 246.)

VIII
In his spirited refutation, Jerome Stolnitz (p. 350) answers his own question
as to how Benjamin got himself into these messes. A partial answer is that
Benjamin reasons the way he does under the compulsion of an ideology.
Another set of explications exists however. Some of them are relatively free
of Benjamin's all-embracing orthodox ideology.
Let's consider, for instance, the series of reasons why Benjamin has chosen
to limit his endeavour to visual arts and the film and why after mentioning a
"phonograph record in the same breath as a photograph he refuses to occupy
himself with the former again. Benjamin must have become aware that even
in his lifetime mechanical reproductions of music had already reached a
respectable level of technical perfection. This has resulted in an increased
popularity of serious music. The case of print is similar as printed books may
be considered a prima-facic example of reproduction. This Benjamin admits,
but brushes it off claiming for it a special, though particularly important
'status'. Nevertheless, Benjamin must have been familiar with the historical
effects of the Guttenbergian revolution.
I wish to propose here that Benjamin's refusal to support his main thesis
b*y reference to the two most ubiquitous Reproducibility examples, books and
phonographic records, is owing to his awareness that the historical evidence
of their appearance and performance in time would contradict his a priori
conclusions.
There might have been a second reason for his not following up on his
initial hint initiated by coupling the phonographic record with a photograph.
It could be that Benjamin did not feel himself at home in the realm of music.
We have also observed that he was not quite fortunate in his excursion into
the field of the visual art of painting. We may begin with his inept choice of

,64

THE MECHANICAL REPRODUCIB1UTY OF ART WORKS REVISITED

the works of Hans Arp as an example of those Dadaist works which 'became
an instrument of ballistic' using an equally unfortunate metaphor. (WAAMR,
pp. 296, 297.)
IX
A certain lack of teel for the visual art of painting informs almost every one
of his ventures into that field. He betrays this weakness in his earlier essay (2
January 1929) about Surrealism" 1 where his treatment is mostly literary. And
when he comes to mention examples of pictorial art, his approach to the
paintings of Chirico is again literary and entirely negative. While admitting
the literary origin of surrealism we don't have to accept Benjamin's insinuation
that this painter's aims were to represent the perceptual features of the scene
painted by him (S, pp. 205-206).
Having been predominantly a literary critic, we should not perhaps blame
him too much for this particular literary bias. But awareness of the pitfalls of
indiscriminate generalization should not keep us from recalling Clive Bell's
essay in which he points out the difficulties the literary man encounters in
trying to grasp works of pictorial art and do them justice."
Briefly, Benjamin falls short of presenting a theory or a hypothesis. And
even if it were one, its truth value would be subject to verification by means
of, among other things, matching it with empirical data. Whatever it is he
offers, it is closer to a prophecy with all its fallacies and pitfalls or, perhaps
better, a fanciful extrapolation from questionable premisses. Even such an
extrapolation would not be exempt from the necessity of empirical verification. In this respect too it fails.
In the above sense even dissenting voices are of marginal importance especially when they come from those who disagree with him on ideological
grounds. As to the critical views expressed by fellow-Marxist writers, we
must take seriously Adorno's contradicting Benjamin's belief that mass reproduction will become the master art in the age of industrialization (AT, p.
309). On the other hand his castigating Benjamin for dialectic shortcomings
in his work, while undoubtedly important in the context of historical materialism, is irrelevant for the judgement of the truth of his thesis.

Most damaging for Benjamin's Reproducibility thesis is the opinion of Bertolt

Brecht for the simple reason that it comes from another Marxist colleague.
In an almost sarcastic entry of 25 July in his Work Diary12 Brecht writes that
Benjamin has discovered aura in his analysis of the film where, together with
the cultic, it decays owing to the reproducibility of art works. He qualifies it
as full of mysticism within an anti-mystical posture. 'In this form is the con-

ception of historical materialism adapted' he writes. And then adds: ' I t is quite
horrible'.
The circumstances of this outburst, entered into the work journal on 25
July 1938, is not known. It seems, however, that it could have easily been the
result of simple rivalry. Hannah Arendt writes in her 1968 introduction to
Benjamin's work (Stolmtz, p. 237, 117), that he wrote his essay in order to
outdo Brecht in radicalism.
Brecht's censure is important above all because it articulates doubts which
many non-Marxist workers in the field of theoretical aesthetics and art history
have developed while reading Benjamin's Reproducibility essay. In this context his doctrinal reprehension is only of marginal concern.
Nevertheless, concluding an essay on such a negative note leaves one with
an ashy taste in the mouth. And it may be so because there is more in Benjamin's Reproducibility piece than what has been found objectionable. In fact,
once he leaves the vulnerable issue of loss of aura owing to mechanical reproduction, he can be quite lucid. And so for instance he has many insightful
things to say about film and film making. But to ponder about them I leave
to more congenial minds.
Ian Knizek, Panuco No. 105, Mexico 06500, D.F., Mexico.

REFERENCES
\ The available English language translation
bears a slightly but significantly different
title, namely 'The Work of Art 111 the Age
of Mechanical Reproduction'; (later
WAAMR) in Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, eds., Marxism and Art (David McKay
Co. Inc., 1972), pp. 281-300. This phrasing
follows that of the earlier French translation
'L'oeuvre d'art a l'epoque de sa reproduction
mecamsee'. Since Benjamin himself collaborated on its preparation he is unlikely to
have had any objection to this wording.
2
Ian Knizek, 'La ontologia de las reproducciones mecamcas de Walter Benjamin',
Plural, No. 185 (February 1987), pp. 38-41.
3
My views were almost instantly challenged
byjuan Acha in 'Lectura ingenua de un texto
de Walter Benjamin', Plural, No. 187 (April
!987), PP- 449- Acha accuses me of'naive
reading of a historic materialist's text' owing
to my alleged 'idealistic-objectivist' mili
tancy.
4
Walter Benjamin, 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeit-

alter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit'

in Gesammelte Schrifteu 1.2, edited by Rolf
Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhauser
(Suhrkamp, 1974), pp. 431-471.
11
Walter Benjamin, 'L'oeuvre d'art a l'epoque
de sa reproduction mecanisee', in Gesammelte Scliriflen, translated by Piere Klossowski (Suhrkamp, 1974), pp. 709-739.
'' Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhauser, 'Anmerkungen' in Gesammelte
Schriften (Suhrkamp, 1974), pp. 709-739.
7
Tbeodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory.
Translated by C. Lenhardt (Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 386. German Ori
ginal: Aesthetische Theorie, edited by Gretel
Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann (Suhrkamp,
1973)> P- 4^ (Later AT.)
8
Walter Benjamin, 'Kleine Geschichte der
Photographie'; Angelus Novus: Ausgewahlle

Schriften ( Little History of Photography')

(Suhrkamp, 1966), Vol. 2, pp. 229 ff. (Later
KGP.)
' Jerome Stolnitz, 'On the Apparent Demise

of Kcally High Art', journal of Aesthetics and

" Clivc bell, "The "Difference" oi Literature',

Ail Criticism, Vol. XL11I. No. 4 (1 y s). pp.

New Republic, New York (29 November

3453sK.

1933), pp. 1X-23.

Walter Benjamin, 'Dor Surrealism', Gesom-

' 2 Bertolt Breclu, Arheitsjourtial (Work Diary)

niche Sclirijien, Vol. 1 (Suhrkamp, 1966), p.

Vol. 1, iyjK~iy4i (Siilirkainp, 197.1), P- '-

2 1 5 . (Later S.)