The Reincarnation of the Aura

2018 ◽  
pp. 221-230
Author(s):  
Victoria Bigliardi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Original Art ◽  
Art Object ◽  
Object Biography ◽  
Material Record ◽  
Plaster Casts

In 1935, Walter Benjamin introduced the aura as the abstract conceptualization of uniqueness, authenticity, and singularity that encompasses an original art object. With the advent of technological reproducibility, Benjamin posits that the aura of an object deteriorates when the original is reproduced through the manufacture of copies. Employing this concept of the aura, the author outlines the proliferation of plaster casts of sculptures in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, placing contextual emphasis on the cultural and prestige value of originals and copies. Theories of authenticity in both art history and material culture are used to examine the nature of the aura and to consider how the aura transforms when an original object is lost from the material record. Through an object biography of a fifteenth-century sculpture by Francesco Laurana, the author proposes that the aura does not disappear upon the loss of the original, but is reincarnated in the authentic reproduction.

The Reincarnation of the Aura

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-80
Author(s):  
Victoria Bigliardi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Original Art ◽  
Art Object ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Object Biography ◽  
Material Record ◽  
Plaster Casts

In 1935, Walter Benjamin introduced the aura as the abstract conceptualization of uniqueness, authenticity, and singularity that encompasses an original art object. With the advent of technological reproducibility, Benjamin posits that the aura of an object deteriorates when the original is reproduced through the manufacture of copies. Employing this concept of the aura, I outline the proliferation of plaster casts of sculptures in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, placing contextual emphasis on the cultural and prestige value of originals and copies. Theories of authenticity in both art history and material culture are used to examine the nature of the aura and to consider how the aura transforms when an original object is lost from the material record. Through an object biography of a 15th-century sculpture by Francesco Laurana, I propose that the aura does not disappear upon the loss of the original, but is reincarnated in the authentic reproduction.

scholarly journals The Aura of Eccentricity: Reflections on Outsider Art Rhetoric and its Impact on a Critical Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 88-89 ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
Cortney Anderson Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Central Mechanism ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Outsider Art ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Aesthetic Affect

In the field of Art History, affecting art with the artist’s aura is a central mechanism of canon creation that mythologizes artists into objects of desire. This tendency permeates outsider art whose appeal is rooted in biographical exceptionalism and eccentricity rather than aesthetic aptitude (see Morgan 2018). Reviewing the work of Henry Darger, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, and A.G. Rizzoli—artists whose works are accumulative, some suggest compulsive, in reiteration and magnitude—this essay explores the pitfalls of projecting an aesthetic affect onto the artist and in turn building their value upon a fabricated aura of eccentricity. The aura of eccentricity resides at the nexus between material and idea. It is both real and mythologized, materially communicated through excess, opulence, and exaggeration of shapes, scale, colour, and medium yet ideologically created in the realm of differentiating adjectives and semantic flourishes. Engaging with Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, this essay argues that material culture demands self-awareness of our own interpretive prejudices, in this case fashioning the artist outsider with eccentric narratives retroactively projected upon them through the interpretation of their work.

Bild, Ding, Material: Nimben und Goldgründe italienischer Tafelmalerei in transkultureller Perspektive

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-541
Author(s):  
Vera-Simone Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Local Production ◽  
Panel Painting ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Impact

Abstract With a special focus on processes of artistic transfer between the Apennine peninsula and other regions in the Mediterranean and beyond, this paper sheds new light on haloes and gold grounds in thirteenthto fifteenth-century Italian painting. By means of case studies, it analyzes both (1) the role of haloes and gold grounds within the specific logic of the images, and (2) the impact of imported artifacts (their techniques, decoration, and materiality) on Italian panel painting as well as the complex interplays between imports and local production. Elucidating the intersections, frictions, and fields of tension between visual and material culture, this paper contributes to discussions on transmedial and transmaterial dynamics, transcultural art history, and the multireferentiality of gold.

Vor- und Nachgeschichte Bild und Zeit bei Walter Benjamin

2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-212
Author(s):  
Cornelia Zumbusch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Dialectical Image ◽  
Hidden Agenda ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chronological Time

Abstract Benjamin’s approach to the history of the nineteenth century as a prehistory (Vorgeschichte) of modernity relies on his concept of the dialectical image. Starting from Benjamin’s interpretation of Proust’s narrative endeavor as the evocation of images that have not been seen before, this essay tries to situate Benjamin’s dialektisches Bild in new contexts. Examining Benjamin’s interest in Goethe’s Urphänomen as well as implicit references to Lessing’s concept of fruchtbarer Augenblick or Cassirer’s idea of symbolische Prägnanz, this essay stresses not so much the important but often considered aspects of discontinuity and destruction of chronological time, but tries to trace a hidden agenda: the affinity of Benjamin’s dialectical image to genetic processes.

The revolution of Fās in 869/1465 and the death of Sultan ‘Abd al-ḥaqq al-Marīnī

1978 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mercedes García-Arenal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Partial Information ◽  
Present Knowledge ◽  
Original Stories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
The Revolution

If our present knowledge of the history of the Muslim Maghrib is in general unsatisfactory, few periods remain as obscure as the fifteenth century.The extant sources are very scarce. Contemporary Maghribī historical writings are practically non-existent and, with few exceptions, this is still an epoch for which Christian chronicles are not yet really relevant. Only fragmentary and partial information can be extracted from the contemporary Spanish and Portuguese documents. Therefore, we have to rely for our knowledge on the so-called manāqib literature or hagiographic dictionaries which proliferated in Morocco during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These volumes—many of which were lithographed in Fās during the nineteenth century—cannot be considered a first-rate source. They are posterior to the period dealt with and appear as versions of a traditional history composed over the years by agglomeration, repetition, and revision from a series of original stories which may be doubtful, even though they are hallowed by time and usage, and fortified by the weight of respectability. Committed to writing, they have acquired the seal of authority and have seldom been challenged.

The Fonte Gaia from Renaissance to Modern Times

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara E. Scappini ◽  
David Boffa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of

The Fonte Gaia from Renaissance to Modern Times examines the history of Siena's famous public fountain, from its fifteenth-century origins to its eventual replacement by a copy in the nineteenth century (and the modern fate of both). The book explores how both the Risorgimento and the Symbolist movements have shaped our perceptions of the Italian Renaissance, as the Quattrocento was filtered through the lens of contemporary art and politics.

Divine and Demonic Imagery at Tor de'Specchi, 1400-1500

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scanlan
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Religious Women ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Corporeal Nature

In the fifteenth century, the Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana, a fledgling community of religious women in Rome, commissioned an impressive array of artwork for their newly acquired living quarters, the Tor de'Specchi. The imagery focused overwhelmingly on the sensual, corporeal nature of contemporary spirituality, populating the walls of the monastery with a highly naturalistic assortment of earthly, divine, and demonic figures. This book draws on art history, anthropology, and gender studies to explore the disciplinary and didactic role of the images, as well as their relationship to important papal projects at the Vatican.

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