LA NOTION D’AURA CHEZ WALTER BENJAMIN
THE CONCEPT OF AURA IN WALTER BENJAMIN

Summary/Abstract: The objective of this article resides primarily in the clarification of the notion of aura, as it is described in Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. This clarification will afterwards be considered as a basis for a possible classification of works of art, according to the presence or absence of aura they manifest. In order to do so, we will proceed with an interrogation concerning the current status of art, by analyzing the implications that artistic reproduction has for the development of artistic perception or reception. By distinguishing between manual and technical reproduction of artworks, we will postulate the possibility of auratic presence in the first case. Therefore, if the result of a manual reproduction is indeed susceptible of this kind of presence, we have to analyze the reasons for which technical reproduction cannot accomplish this task and furthermore, we have to establish if this failure to do so constitutes as a cause for the fragile status of art in today’s cultural pulse.

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