Literature Review: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin is a German Marxist literacy critic. Walter Benjamin's importance as a philosopher and critical theorist can be gauged by the diversity of his intellectual influence and the continuing productivity of his thought (Osborne & Charles, 2015). In Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", He discusses a shift in perception and its affects in the wake of the advent of film and photography in the twentieth century (Ginal, 2008). This essays attempts to describe the changed experience of art in the modern world and sees the rise of Fascism and mass society as the culmination of a process of debasement, whereby art ceases to be a means of instruction and becomes instead a mere gratification, a matter of taste alone (Marxists. org, n.d). Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new. 

In Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", he says that all efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical source while maintaining the property system. I totally agree this statement that no war no technology. This is because war makes a country stronger and they want to protect their country so that they will invent more and more technology so that other country cannot fight with them. But I totally disagree that war is beautiful. In my opinion, I think that war is cruel and bloody, most of the soldiers lose their life in the war and many places had destroyed. In my point of view, I want a peaceful world that without any crime, but I know it is impossible. But war brings contribution and a lot of changes to the world. War can counted as an art and it really created the history in the age of mechanical reproduction.

Reference:
Osborne, P & Charles, M 2015, Walter Benjamin, viewed 21 April 2017,
<https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/#BioSke>.

Ginal, 2008, Summary: The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, viewed 21 April 2017,
<https://frankfurtschool.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/summary-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction/>.