Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption - Monoskop
Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption - Monoskop
Walter Benjamin, an Aesthetic of Redemption - Monoskop
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<strong>of</strong> Art in the Age <strong>of</strong> Mech<strong>an</strong>ical Reproduction." These reflections make <strong>an</strong> attempt to give questions about<br />
the theory <strong>of</strong> art a truly contemporary form: <strong>an</strong>d indeed, through avoid<strong>an</strong>ce <strong>of</strong> all immediate relation to<br />
politics. 33<br />
Page 186<br />
It would seem reasonable to conjecture that given the exigencies <strong>of</strong> the political situation at h<strong>an</strong>d, <strong>Benjamin</strong> felt<br />
compelled to break <strong>of</strong>f work temporarily on his major study <strong>of</strong> this period, the Arcades Project, <strong>an</strong>d focus his<br />
attention on more contemporary issues. To be sure, if the specific historical focus <strong>of</strong> the two works were quite<br />
different, they remained closely interrelated at the methodological level. As <strong>Benjamin</strong> comments in a letter to<br />
Scholem: "These reflections [in "The Work <strong>of</strong> Art" essay] <strong>an</strong>chor the history <strong>of</strong> art in the nineteenth century in <strong>an</strong><br />
underst<strong>an</strong>ding <strong>of</strong> the situation <strong>of</strong> art as it is experienced by us in the "34implying that the art <strong>of</strong> the nineteenth<br />
century, the subject <strong>of</strong> the Arcades Project, could itself only be fully comprehended on the basis <strong>of</strong> <strong>an</strong> underst<strong>an</strong>ding<br />
<strong>of</strong> the fate <strong>of</strong> art in contemporary life. An even more precise specification <strong>of</strong> the nature <strong>of</strong> the relation between the<br />
two works appears in a letter to Werner Kraft on December 27, 1935:<br />
In conclusion I would like to remark that I have finished a programmatic work on the theory <strong>of</strong> art. It is<br />
called "The Work <strong>of</strong> Art in the Age <strong>of</strong> Mech<strong>an</strong>ical Reproduction." Materially speaking, it st<strong>an</strong>ds in no<br />
relation to the large book [the Arcades Project] whose outline I have mentioned; however methodologically<br />
[it st<strong>an</strong>ds] in the closest relation, since every historical work, if it is to be relev<strong>an</strong>t for historical<br />
materialism, must be preceded by a precise determination <strong>of</strong> the present situation as far as the things whose<br />
history is to be written are concerned: . . . the fate <strong>of</strong> art in the nineteenth century.35<br />
Here, <strong>Benjamin</strong> reaffirms the view expressed in the letter to Scholem that the key to the comprehension <strong>of</strong> past<br />
(nineteenth-century) art lies in <strong>an</strong> underst<strong>an</strong>ding <strong>of</strong> the present situation <strong>of</strong> arta statement reminiscent <strong>of</strong> Marx's<br />
dictum that the key to underst<strong>an</strong>ding the <strong>an</strong>atomy <strong>of</strong> the ape is hum<strong>an</strong> <strong>an</strong>atomy. Through this statement Marx me<strong>an</strong>t<br />
to suggest that all precapitalist economic formations could finally be understood only in light <strong>of</strong> the capitalist<br />
economy. <strong>Benjamin</strong>'s perspective is slightly less teleological, if it attempts nonetheless to express <strong>an</strong> <strong>an</strong>alogous<br />
sentiment: there is a process<br />
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