Work of Art

• Walter Benjamin was a German Jewish intellectual born in Berlin in 1892 to wealthy parents.
• Following his death, his writing was nearly forgotten until the publication in German in 1955 of an anthology of his work.

• However, he failed to obtain the formal qualification at the University of Frankfurt that would have enabled him to become an academic.
• Arendt’s sense is that Benjamin’s eccentric genius jarred with the mediocrity of the university system.
• He had a visa to the US, but met with trouble as he was making his way to neutral Portugal.
• Read more:
  Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Ayn Rand all felt 'different' in the world – and changed the way we think

My younger self’s kind of thinker

• Benjamin was my younger self’s kind of thinker.
• And just as significantly, he was a philosopher in the sense of being someone who seeks truth.
• And to range freely across ideas is a sign of someone who will likely ask too many questions.

• Benjamin was an unfettered intellectual who held the tension between the old and the new – between tradition and renewal.
• Today, many one-dimensional, intellectual clones, who are, ironically, influenced by Benjamin’s ideas, uncritically sweep aside the old.
• But then there was not all that much room for Benjamin’s way in his own time, either.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)

• In earlier times, Benjamin argues, when different economic systems dominated, art had “cult” value.
• But many other examples come to mind, such as the art buried alongside the pharaohs.
• For Benjamin, in its earliest ritualistic incarnations, art was not even recognised as art but as magic.
• And who would even refer to the material we produce on social media as art – even though it is sometimes artistic?
• And this unique work has an aura, which includes the process of creation and the work’s journeys in the world.
• But once we learned the techniques of reproducing art for mass exhibition and exchange, the aura was diminished or even lost.

Theses on the philosophy of history (1940)

• In short: history is often the tool of the powerful.
• As Benjamin’s argument develops, it becomes clear that for him, emancipation from fascism will in part proceed from a retelling of history – from brushing history “against the grain”.
• The point is that the fascists told a version of history that presented themselves as the vector of progress.
• But a more thorough telling of history, that included the experiences of the oppressed, such as Jewish people, would reveal the fallacious nature of fascist history.

The Task of the Translator (1923)

• However, in art, language becomes the bearer of meanings that are more vivid but also more elusive.
• Benjamin writes,
  It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
• It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
• These sentiments help us probe the mystery of why art itself even exists – why art has such an effect on us.

Jamie Q Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.