Chapter 1 Summary

Benjamin asserts that works of art have always been reproduced, either by students for learning or professionals for financial gain. This, of course, took time and labour but with photography a copy of what is in front of the lens can be instantly attained. As Benjamin claims:

“With photography, in the process of pictorial reproduction the hand was for the first time relieved of the principal artistic responsibilities, which henceforth lay in the eye alone as it peered into the lens.” (P4)

With this being the case a copy of the work of art could be created straight away and with a minimum of physical effort, but he also foresaw that copies would become available instantaneously. This has come true with the invention of digital photography, that an artwork can be copied with a digital camera, perhaps on a camera phone, and instantly viewed. This copy is then uploaded to social media, which produces a copy of the copy, and is then further reproduced. Considering Benjamin wrote The Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in 1936, he had a truly visionary perception.

Photography was basically invented to produce copies, Fox Talbot was a frustrated amateur artist but a brilliant chemist and it was this frustration, which led him to invent photography. But Benjamin saw photography outgrowing this function and becoming an art form in itself, challenging the perception of the established arts. When he wrote this book photography was being accepted as art and exhibited in galleries such as The Museum of Modern Art and was beginning to outgrow the function of just being a tool for reproduction. But Benjamin also noted how this will affect our perception of art forms, how the medium of photography will influence our viewing experience of traditional art. How we consume photography has become essential to our relationship with art and Benjamin proposes:

“As regards studying that standard, nothing is more revealing than how its twin manifestations – reproduction of the work of art and the new art of cinematography – redound upon art in its traditional form” (P5)