Mechanical reproduction works by reducing artworks in size so people can command them

Evidence

When I went on to call such a way of dealing with art miserable and irritating, she became obstinate. The great creations,' she said, cannot be seen as the works of individuals. They are collective objects, so powerful that appreciating them is almost necessarily connected with reducing their size. Mechanical methods of reproduction are basically techniques for reducing things in size. They help people to achieve that degree of command of the work without which they cannot appreciate it.’ And so I exchanged a photo of the Wise Virgin of Strasbourg, which she had promised me at the beginning of our meeting, for a theory of reproduction which is perhaps of greater value to me. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 844

Categorization

• XREF: Offers a fresh angle on the famous Benjamin ‘work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ essay — the size-reduction thesis is a less-cited supporting idea that reframes reproduction not as democratization but as mastery. — connects to: Mechanical reproduction shifts art’s basis from ritual to politics. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 629; Mechanical reproduction of beauty destroys the unconscious idolatry that made beauty vital
• SEED: Angle for an essay: reproduction-as-shrinking reframes the whole ‘access to art’ debate — we value the auratic original precisely because it resists being commanded, and mechanical copies make it manageable instead of sublime.

Broader Connections

• Mechanical reproduction shifts art’s basis from ritual to politics. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 629
• Mechanical reproduction of beauty destroys the unconscious idolatry that made beauty vital #responds-to (0.75)