Benjamin said mass-producing art strips away the one thing that made it special

Walter Benjamin argued that a painting's 'aura' comes from its unique presence in time and place — the fact that there's only one, and you have to go to it. Photography and film broke that: a reproduction can be everywhere at once, detached from the ritual and tradition that once gave the original its authority. He thought this was not simply a loss but a shift in what art is for, opening it to political use instead of cult-like reverence.

— Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — essay, 1935
Go deeper: get the book →