Post Class Blog 9/17

I enjoyed our in class discussion on Monday about Walter Benjamin and his text “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.  Though I had already read this text in a previous class that I had with Dr. Cummings, it was interesting to hear what other people thought of the reading and what quotes stood out to them. One of the most memorable examples that came up was the Mona Lisa image and how through the mechanical reproduction of it, the image loses its authenticity. Having been to the Louvre, I have seen Da Vinci’s original painting and I have to say that I found the experience to be somewhat disappointing. The average sized painting was on a huge wall, roped off so people couldn’t get to close to it, and though I expected it to be larger than life, it in fact wasn’t. This in-class discussion made me think of this experience because though the painting wasn’t what I expected it to be, it was still the original work of art, as well as an interesting experience that I wanted to record on my camera. So after I got home, watching everything on my camera with friends and family, I found that I didn’t feel the same way that I did when I was actually there. The image through the camera lost some of its authenticity for me and it was interesting to connect this experience to Benjamin’s key concepts in the reading.