Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( BEN-yə-min; German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈbɛnjamiːn] ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin’s cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.

Among Benjamin’s best known works are the essays “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935), and “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940). His major work as a critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.

Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin’s thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that “Benjamin was a philosopher”, while his younger colleagues Arendt and Adorno contend that he was “not a philosopher”. Scholem remarked “The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction”. Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.

In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French–Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

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Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” argues that technological reproduction diminishes the “aura” of a work of art by removing its uniqueness and historical authenticity. This shift causes a decline in the traditional, ritualistic value of art and a rise in its “exhibition value,” leading to a more politicized and democratized art form with potential for revolutionary social change, which stands in contrast to fascism’s political aestheticization of war. The essay was written in the 1930s and became a foundational text in media theory and cultural studies.

Key arguments

The loss of “aura”: Mechanical reproduction detaches an artwork from its original time and place, thereby losing its authenticity and history. This unique “aura” is based on the object’s presence in time and space and its unique history of ownership and physical condition.
Cult value vs. exhibition value: Before mechanical reproduction, art’s value was largely tied to its uniqueness and its place in ritual or cultic contexts. The ability to mass-reproduce art shifts its value from this “cult value” to “exhibition value,” making it more accessible to a wider audience.
Political implications: The loss of aura and the rise of exhibition value make art more open to political interpretation and use.
- Revolutionary potential: Benjamin saw this as a potentially revolutionary development, where the art of mechanical reproduction (like film) could be used to politicize the masses and engage them in a new way.
- Fascist aestheticization: He contrasted this with fascism, which he argued “aestheticizes politics” by using mass media to create a spectacle and mobilize emotion without changing the underlying social relations.
Impact on art forms: The essay specifically addresses the impact of photography and film, which are inherently reproducible, and argues that their impact goes beyond just a copy of a traditional artwork, fundamentally changing how we experience and think about art.
A precursor to later work: Benjamin’s ideas have influenced later scholars and critics, including John Berger and Susan Sontag, who continued to explore the impact of mass media on art and culture.