‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’
Illuminations
New York: Schocken Books
[1935] 1969

“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different front the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. …” (p.219)

—Paul V alery, pièces sur l’ art,
“ La Conquête de l’ubiquité,” Paris.

“With lithography the technique of reproduction reached an essentially new stage. This much more direct process was distinguished by the tracing of the design on a stone rather than its incision on a block of wood or its etching on a copperplate and permitted graphic art for the first time to put its products on the market, not only in large numbers as hitherto, but also in daily changing forms.

…For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens.

…Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public;…” (p.221)

“The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” (p.222)