The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935, “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit”), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes that the devaluation of a work of art is consequent to its mechanical reproduction. As such, the subject and themes of the essay have much influenced the fields of art history and cultural studies, of media theory and architectural theory.

Benjamin wrote the essay in the time of the Nazi régime (1933–45) in Germany, in effort to produce a theory of art that is “useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art” in mass culture, proposing that, in the age of mechanical reproduction, and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics.

Walter Benjamin published three versions of the essay; the original, German edition in 1935; the French edition in 1936; and the revised edition in 1939, from which derive the English translations of “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.

The themes of “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935) are presented in a quotation from the essay “The Conquest of Ubiquity” (1928), by Paul Valéry, which establishes that the works of art developed in the past are different from contemporary works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to understand a work of art in the modern context.

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”

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