Apropos of Benjamin by Jeffery

This is a link to the Google Art Project. Here Google has used its street view technology to allow access to 17 of the world’s greatest museums and art pieces. As Benjamin lauded the infinite reproducibility of a work of art and its possibilities for democratizing art and allowing the world access to it he also provided the caveat that reproduction would eventually strip a piece of its aura and leave the original as nothing more than a pretty picture rather than something awe inspiring and sacred. So what about the Google Art Project? Here we unquestionably have a digital reproduction of some of the greatest works of art by Van Gogh, Juan Gris, Giotto and Cezanne. but rather than postcards or reproductions we can look at the close details of all of these pieces in ways we could never even look at one short of an art history degree and a major turn of luck. Here we have brush strokes, cracks, pigments, papier collee and all of the other techniques and mediums of some of the greatest artists in history. Perhaps the aura is gone. Perhaps we are able to see something in a way that only a handful of people have previously been able to see these pieces of art. I think that the swirls of Van Gogh’s Starry Night will make people more and more desirous of seeing the genuine article rather than less. We are able to so intimately examine and engage this iconic piece of art that for us the only aspect we lack is the aura provided by seeing it in person.