Benjamin linked mechanical size-reduction of art to a salutary, alienating plainness

Evidence

When he then spoke of the contemporary passionate inclination to get hold of art objects as closely as possible through mass reproductions, he saw this as a dragging down of greatness into baseness, but as one which helped to disinfect the suffocating atmosphere of an aura which could only be sustained artificially. There was a daring assumption, or utopian vision, concealed here: that there was a close connection between the effect of size reduction in reproductive techniques and a kind of salutary alienation and plainness, between the vision of avant-garde artists and the vision of the masses. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 225

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The hidden utopian thesis that avant-garde vision and mass vision converge through reproduction is dense and resists one-sentence summary.