I chose to re-create Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother (commonly known as Whistler's Mother) by James McNeill Whistler. McNeill painted on the principle of "l'art pour l'art" mentioned by Benjamin, and I wanted to reproduce it because I thought it expressed the lack of depth of that understanding of an essentially mimetic genre.
Our class's responses so far seem to be interpreting "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" as valuing the elitist "aura" and opposing the democratization of the art form through mechanical reproduction. I disagree with this interpretation, as Benjamin writes that "mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual" (301; emphasis added). As a Marxist, Benjamin would most likely view emancipation from a hierarchical and quasi-religious structure as a good thing. By basing art on politics in place of ritual, the proletariat could use art to supplant the bourgeoisie, rather than allowing the bourgeoisie to continue to confine art's power for its own uses.
In the evidence of the seventy years since Benjamin published his essay, I have to agree with the heart of his analysis. While I may not be able to see every brushstroke or understand the entire ownership tradition of a individual painting digitally reproduced on Wikipedia, I much more easily gain an understanding of its place in artistic tradition overall because of its wide availability. Art is no longer confined to a class of patrons, and this is a good thing.
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