Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin discusses what happens to art when it is reproduced. There is a difference between a painting and a video. Conventional art is uncritically enjoyed, while new art is criticized. When viewing a video, the public’s critical and receptive attitudes become one. This happens because people are affected by the large number of people around them and their reactions. One person or a few, not mass numbers of people, usually view a painting. Through the ages, only a few people have generally viewed paintings at a time. This has now changed with the ability to mechanically reproduce a painting. In museums and galleries, the masses of people are going to have to same response to a painting as they would to a video. When art is reproduced, it changes the reaction of the audience. People are influenced by the people around them. And when people surround them, they do not get a chance to make up their own mind about a painting or a piece of artwork. In a culture where the “sacred” in art vanishes, people will take art for granted. They will not appreciate a true original painting, why would they when they have a reproduction.
