Modernity, art and masses: common perspectives between Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt

This article tries to point out and value the common ideas that exist among the thoughts of Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt in regard to tradition, modernity, art and culture. For this, some of the aspects of the historical vision of both thinkers are reconstructed, to later assess their aesthetic understandings within the framework of modern mass society. The concepts of authority and aura are central in this journey to understand the way in which the "rupture of tradition" and the contemporary social tendency towards the "reduction of distances" offer a new essential circumstance for modern culture.