Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the steps of Benjamin's argument in order.
- Mechanical reproduction detaches the image from that place
- A traditional work has a unique existence in one place
- The aura withers as the reproduction travels to the viewer
- Value shifts from ritual presence to being widely seen
- That uniqueness gives it an aura tied to ritual and tradition
Hints
- The argument begins with uniqueness, not with reproduction.
- The shift in value is the conclusion.
Show the answer
- A traditional work has a unique existence in one place
- That uniqueness gives it an aura tied to ritual and tradition
- Mechanical reproduction detaches the image from that place
- The aura withers as the reproduction travels to the viewer
- Value shifts from ritual presence to being widely seen
Why
Laying it out as a sequence shows that the conclusion is about institutions, not about quality. Nothing in the argument says a reproduced image is worse; it says the basis on which images are valued has changed, from being present in one place to being seen in many.
Practise Photography and Mass Media
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Photography and Mass Media
- Which are true of a photograph's indexical character?
- Photographs possess evidential authority because they are indexical traces, yet they frequently mislead. Why…
- Sort each consequence by whether Benjamin treats it as EMANCIPATORY or DANGEROUS.
- In roughly which year did Benjamin write "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"?
- Arrange these developments in the reproduction of images in order.
- Reproductions flatten scale, so a miniature and an altarpiece look the same size on a screen. Why does that…