Benjamin treated mass reproduction’s debasement of art as a salutary rupturing of artificial aura

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, 847

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ — a canonical Frankfurt School text. — connects to: Benjamin and Adorno both located hope in traditional art’s decay and disenchantment — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 896; Mechanical reproduction of beauty destroys the unconscious idolatry that made beauty vital; Mass reproduction’s erosion of the aura destroys experience rooted in tradition. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 629

Broader Connections

• Mechanical reproduction of beauty destroys the unconscious idolatry that made beauty vital #corroborates (0.85)
• Mass reproduction’s erosion of the aura destroys experience rooted in tradition. #contradicts (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 629