" With the advent of the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism, art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later. At the time, the right reacted with the doctrine of l'art pourl'art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of 'pure' art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter. (In poetry, Mallarme was the first to take this position)" (1237).
Benjamin makes an interesting judgment in calling photos the first "means of reproduction" although printing had reproduced words and their written arrangement for centuries prior. Although he doesn't say so, surely the automation of print in the 1800's and even increased transport and distribution would have contributed to these same effects for similar reasons. Just as painting no longer had to photograph, the novel had less to do with journalism.
". . . for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the wo of art reproduced becomes example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the 'authentic' print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to ritual, it begins to be based on another practice -- politics . . . .
With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunites for the exhibition of their products. It is easier to exhibit a portrait bust that can be sent here and there than to exhibit the statute of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple. (1237).
Here he begs some questions, but the idea is interesting. Just how does reproduction release art from ritual? Does it remove the necessity of a priesthood to interpret or perform it? Would the term ritual be as meaningful if the statue of divinity were in a secular museum instead of a temple? I wonder whether Benjamin might not mean in part that art can be freed of certain socioeconomic trappings, that reproduction removes the objet d'art from social contextualization or from a contextualization.
If so, this seems opposed to the findings of Horkheimer and Adorno, who insist not many years later (Benjamin 1935, Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947) that capitalism and broadcast technology have rendered artistic production uniform.
Either way, publication in 1935 was rigidly linked to patterns of profit and distribution, broadcast even more so, at least in the US, where public airwaves had been given away to now-familiar broadcast corporations.
Perhaps more important to ritual than the physical mobility of the objet d'art is its social mobility, its usability by different classes. In that event, use must refer to consumption, production, and determining decisions over production and distribution.
There may be a general principle here. Contemporary readers may refer to current debates over intellectual property, .torrent files and filesharing networks. Some will remember how similar the dialog was in the early 1980's when the music industry momentarily crashed or played possum in response to the arrival of recordable cassette tapes. But I suspect that technology has impacted power over information for a long time. Papyrus would have also made writing easier to hide as well as transport. It would have made it possible to view writing without the authority of a temple. The early development of Western monotheism has survived more extensively and securely in the Hebrew texts than in the Egyptian record, not because the Egyptians had no paper or less paper, of course, but because the Hebrews may have known early on that their records had to be moved and stored. The religious texts include documents that are in some ways revolutionary; that may in part be because of the draw of the form.
Well, enough speculation in that quarter. Walter Ong has some interesting things to day on the subject, though, if anyone's interested. Benjamin, meanwhile, goes on with some appreciation of film:
"For the entire spectrum of optical, and now also acoustical, perception the film has brought about a similar deepening of apperception. It is only an obverse of this fact hat behavior items shown in a movie can be analyzed with much more precisely and from more points of view than those presented on paintings or on the stage. As compared with painting, filmed behavior lends itself more readily to analysis because of its incompareably more precise statements of the situation. In comparison with the stage scene, the filmed behavior item lends itself more readily to analysis because it can be isolated more easily. This circumstance derives its chief importance from its tendency to promote the mutual penetration of art and science" (1238).
I find the tone here interesting because Benjamin himself has clearly lived through the change. There's something in it that reminds me of trying to convey to students what it felt like typing papers on an old underwood typwriter and swearing and running to the store for white-out. Awareness of the distinction is lost to the population very quickly.
Ten years ago I read in books that The Book was to come to and end. Now I read in blogs that the book will survive. We ain't in Kansas anymore -- though, for all I know, you might be.
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." in Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
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