<P> The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes that the aura of a work of art is devalued by mechanical reproduction . The subject and themes of the essay have much influenced the fields of art history and architectural theory, and cultural studies and media theory . </P> <P> During the Nazi régime (1933--45) in Germany, Benjamin wrote the essay to produce a theory of art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in mass culture; that, in the age of mechanical reproduction, and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics . </P> <P> Three editions of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction were published: (i) the original, German edition in 1935; (ii) the French edition in 1936; and (iii) the revised German edition in 1939, from which derive the contemporary English translations of the essay . </P> <P> The themes of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935) are initially presented in a quotation from the essay "The Conquest of Ubiquity" (1928), by Paul Valéry, which establishes that the works of art developed in the past are different from contemporary works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to understand a work of art in the modern context . </P>

The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility second version