The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Abstract

Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new. The enormous changes which printing, the mechanical reproduction of writing, has brought about in literature are a familiar story. The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. One might subsume the eliminated element in the term "aura" and go on to say: That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art . The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. 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.

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