At the beginning of the chapter, Benjamin proposes that the work of art has a different traditional value over time. Personally I think this could have been better expressed by saying cultural instead of traditional, as culture makes traditions, but it’s splitting hairs. Again he has a valid point as attitudes and beliefs change over time and our reaction to ancient Greek sculpture is very different to the sculptors at the time.

He then raises the issue of worship as most artefacts were primarily created with this function in mind. This function then became the meaning of the artefact and formed part of its aura and he then stresses the need to keep the two connected. Again I can see the sense of this as works of art do need to have a function. As he states:

The ‘one of a kind’ value of the ‘genuine’ work of art has its underpinnings in the ritual in which it had its original, initial utility value. (P11)

But the function of art has changed over the years and photography was fundamental to this shift. So the art movements then came up with the function of ‘art for art’s sake’, which replaced the function of art being a source of worship. Being freed from its uniqueness through mechanical reproduction its aura is reduced and with it the need to fulfil the function of worship. To make this point apparent, can you imagine worshiping a photograph, even if this photograph showed the second coming?

From this standpoint, where the function of the artefact has been challenged, Benjamin then proposes that the function of the artefact has changed. It has moved from fulfilling a need to worship or ritualise and has been replaced by political meaning. This is to say a need to express a different value, a message or an emotion and not to inspire ritual or worship. The last two sentences sum this up nicely:

However, the instant the criterion of genuineness in art reproduction failed, the entire social function of art underwent an upheaval. Rather than being underpinned by ritual, it came to be underpinned by a different practice: politics (P12)