Reading 8: Images and Ownership

Issues of authenticity in art have been prevalent throughout history. Fundamental concepts introduced by Benjamin in his essay Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, have been analyzed and reinterpreted by scholars ever since. Benjamin claims that the authenticity of a work is informed by its unique existence in history. The Oxford Dictionary defines authentic as ‘reliable; genuine’, its root word coming from the Greek authentes meaning ‘one who does a thing himself’ (1). Benjamin terms the elusive quality inherent in an authentic work of art as its “aura”. The Oxford Dictionary definition of the word ‘aura’ is simply, ‘a subtle quality associated with person or thing' (2). Benjamin distinguishes between historical aura and natural aura. Historical aura is based on the description above whereby a unique object is located in a unique time and place and carries with it a particular history. He associates natural aura with distance and likens it to experiencing the view of a mountain range on a warm summer day (3). The key concept here is the experience of the actual mountain range. He explains the antithesis of this concept as ‘the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly' (4). In other words, the increasingly insatiable desire of the masses to ‘own’ by reducing and containing images of an original phenomenon. An early attempt to possess an experience of natural phenomenon can be seen in the advent of the Claude Glass, referring to the effect of the Claude Glass to re-contextualize a natural vista Geoff Park recounts, ‘condensed and framed, in the moment of capture, its miniaturized picture was a private possession’ (5).


1 - D. Mackenzie (compiled by), The Oxford School Dictionary (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1958), 23.
2 - Mackenzie, 22.
3 - W. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Source: Arendt, H (ed), (translated by Harry Zohn). Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), 219.
4 - Benjamin, 219.
5 - Geoff Park, “Theatre Country”, in Theatre Country: Essays on landscape and whenua, (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006, pp. 113-127), 116.