Aura...What is it? Where does it come from?

I like to post my incredibly well written and deeply philosophical essays from my Intro. to STaC exams. Here's another:

Prompt: Write an essay in which you speculate on what it is that produces an "aura" that does not rely on tradition in contemporary culture. Be sure to use at least one specific example of some contemporary thing/person with "aura". And be sure to speculate why that happens.

     Something that has an aura has an ethereal quality. 'It' has specialness, originality, some sort of uniqueness. It's not just new things or new people that have an aura. Andy Warhol's work has an aura, his work isn't new, he's not new, he's dead, but still his artwork has that special something that gets people to go to the museum. What is fascinating about Andy Warhol and his work is that when you look at it critically, his work and life and fame is based off the exploitation of images of everyday commodities, like Coca-Cola and Campbell soup. And his artistic medium wasn't paint or sculpture; it was screen printing, which means that his work had the ability to be massed produced. 
     How could someone's work have this 'aura' when they actually never produced it (Warhol had assistants screen print his artistic visions)? Warhol is famous for pop art. Maybe that is what gives Warhol's work aura. The fact that he was the one to really popularize the style and get it out into mainstream culture. The fact that a large population knows Warhol's work when they see it and know that that is 'pop art' is what gives his work an aura. But that would mean that what creates the aura, all the fame around his work, is the fact that it's accessible to a large population. 
     This defies what the meaning of aura stands for. Something with an aura should be one of a kind, it should be rare. Warhol's work has an aura and one could describe his work as iconic, but it doesn't have super special quality. You know when you see Marilyn Monroe's face in columns and rows on a canvas in bright colors, you know it's a the work of Warhol. Perhaps, it's the fact that the work is iconic that produces the aura. A Rembrandt has an aura. It could be the way he uses the light, but he's not considered an Old Master for no reason at all. 
     It seems that lots of things in pop culture today are said to have an aura. Some say the Gangnam Style music video featuring PSY has an aura. Is it the bright, neon colors? Is it the catchy beat? There doesn't seem to be anything special about the music video, we've seen bright colors before and listened to catchy beats, yet some still say it has an aura. This could be said for Warhol's work as well, yet something about it creates the effect of the mysterious aura. 
     It seems that aura is a paradox. There is no one defining quality that precipitates an aura. It could be originality, uniqueness, rarity or specialness. It could be accessibility, in the case of mass produced art, images, literature, film and consumer goods. But it doesn't seem like accessibility would have a part in the 'aura' effect, yet practically everything with an aura is accessible (it just may take a fourteen hour flight to another country to see a piece of art and/or a large sum of money). It must be a combination of uniqueness and some innate human flaw, perfection and imperfection that creates and aura. The aura, in itself, is a magical, mysterious property of human nature.


See?? Pretty good for 40 minutes.