The Aura of the Original & the Role of the Reproduction The idea that a work of art is unique, that the original has an aura about it, is an idea brought up by Walter Benjamin. He explains his position that the difference between the original work of art and a reproduction is that the reproductions are just that, they are copies. He brings up that the original must have some aesthetic quality that prompts a person to attempt to reproduce the original, so that it takes a completely separate yet similar physical form. The issue of reproduction was not nearly as important an issue until technology had advanced enough to facilitate mass reproduction of works of art. The mechanization of the 20th Century allowed the mass population to be exposed to exponentially more works of art. Benjamin explains this kind of exposure is detrimental because they are reproductions. Fine Art has had, in the past, a spiritual, ritualistic quality to it. This may have to do with the history of art and its role in Catholicism as its main commissioner until about the Neo-classical period in art. The subjects of paintings especially were symbols of Christianity. With the progression of subject matter away from deity from the Neo-classical period on, and the ushering in of the age of mechanical reproduction, we see originals losing their uniqueness, the aura that sets the original apart from the copies. Benjamin explains that the relationship of art to the viewer becomes less and less associated with the original, and more so with the copies, prints, photographs, and film. There is an increasing interest on the contemporary scene regarding the electric realm of reproduction, where the copy is reduced to a binary code of zeroes and ones, digitizing the original, creating a copy that requires a machine to actually translate this code into the image of the art. The ease of this process and the wide spread use of the machinery to translate these codes could be a log...
