Alois Riegl and Walter Benjamin on Close-Up View and Distant View: Another Look at the Reproduction of the Work of Art
2022
Abstract
The study offers a new interpretation of the relationship between the motif of atmosphere in the Viennese art historian Alois Riegl and the notion of the technical reproducibility of a work of art in Walter Benjamin. In addition to the notion of atmosphere or mood (Stimmung), the study focuses on the notions of the close-up or tactile view (Nahsicht) and the distant view (Fernsicht), including the way Riegl uses them in his conception of art history as a fundamental yet historically determined manifestation of human nature.
The transformation of the relationship between these two perspectives is then understood as one of the starting points of Walter Benjamin's theory.