Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Walter Benjamin's Article

I would like to discuss about an excerpt from "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.":

In principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men. Replicas were made by 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 art, however, represents something new.

As I read through the rest of Benjamin's article, I found some interesting examples about how art has been reproduced. First, the types of work of art that are most reproducible are Bronzes, Terra cottas, and coins. In art class, we see many works of art being reproduced almost in every chapter. Every time we look at an art that has been reconstructed, we see it in an entirely different point of view. Instead of looking at one story, we see two, one from the original "cult" and one from an artist's depiction.

Second, Benjamin stated that films are works of art that are also reproduced: "the shooting of a film, especially of a sound film, affords a spectacle unimaginable anywhere at any time before this." You are probably asking, how is a film a work of art? Benjamin answers this question by comparing theater and film with painting. He compares them by relating them to a surgical operation, which in turn compares a surgeon with a magician: "The magician heals a sick person by the laying on of hands... The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient's body..." This comparison matches the aspects of the painter and the cameraman. The painter paints an overview [or a "touch"] of a certain scene while the cameraman "dissects" the larger scene into smaller specific scenes. The painter and cameraman can both create and reproduce stories, though is much easier through the camera then reproducing an entire scene on a canvas.

On the whole, mechanical reproduction of art has been changing views of the masses toward art as a whole. Today, we see many reproductions in paintings, sculptures, films, and even music. There are even YouTube videos that have reproductions of different shows, politics and music. In fact, if it wasn't for mechanical reproduction, we would just be viewing the same things over and over.