On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:40 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Presumably this would mean Benjamin didn't think of any of the
great prints
as art-no Durers, no Mantegnas. He can't have meant this- how did he
account for prints as art?
Benjamin says in the first two paragraphs:
"In principle, a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made
artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made buy
pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their
works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain.
Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents
something new. Historically, it advanced itermittently, and in leaps
at long intervals, but with accelerated intensity. The Greeks knew
only tow procedures of gtechnically reproducing works of art: founding
and stamping. ... With the woodcut, graphic art became mechanically
reproducible for the first time, long before script became
reproducible by print. ...
"...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...."
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
