In a message dated 7/3/08 7:04:33 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Benjamin used the word "aura" to refer to the sense of awe and reverence
> one
> presumably experienced in the presence of unique works of art. . .[with]
> external
> attributes such as its known line of ownership, its restricted exhibition,
> its publicized authenticity, or its cultural value."
>
This, as conveyed by Saul, is something we can recognize somewhat. (It's
certainly not adequately conveyed by anyone's using the single word 'aura'.)
There's no doubt we are "prepped" a bit by knowing the "history" of well-known,
highly valued painting masterpieces.
Awe is the rarest of human emotions, and we like to feel it when we can. When
I first went to the Louvre, in my early twenties, the Mona Lisa was roped
off, keeping us all six feet from the object. A museum guard was standing next
to
it. We all approached it with a kind of reverence -- ready to be wowed. In
well-mounted exhibitions in good museums and galleries, the "star" pics enjoy
a similar prepping celebration.
I'm not at all against that, it's "kinda fun", but in the end the work itself
has to match up to its introduction. For me, if the work doesn't have the
"right stuff", reverential presentation alone won't occasion an a.e. Indeed,
some
of great delights for me have come when encountering a modestly placed
mastepiece off in a corner. In short, it seems to me the "aura" Benjamin
apparently
is talking about is somewhat beside the point of "aesthetic experience".
Great frames often ready us, but, to mix metaphors, ultimately the clothes
don't
make the man.
Saul summarizes a Benjamin thought:
> With the advent of art's mechanical reproducibility, and the development
> of forms such as film in which there is no actual original,
> the experience is freed from place and ritual. "For the first time in world
> history," Benjamin wrote, "mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of
> art from its parasitical dependence on ritual."
>
The "first time in history" sounds a bit much. Prints had existed for
centuries. Perhaps consonant with Benjamin's point about "aura", however, it
was
fainting deflating for me when I learned that perhaps 4,000 copies of Hokusai's
"Fuji in Clear Weather" had been pulled before the woodblock fell to pieces. It
told me I could never go to Japan and see the "original".
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