Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics.
'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.'
'But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'
John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has.
'Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of professional art critics ... he is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation'
Peter Fuller, Arts Review
'The influence of the series and the book ... was enormous ... It opened up for general attention areas of cultural study that are now commonplace'
Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling
'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Observer
'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.'
'But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'
John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has.
'Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of professional art critics ... he is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation'
Peter Fuller, Arts Review
'The influence of the series and the book ... was enormous ... It opened up for general attention areas of cultural study that are now commonplace'
Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling
'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Observer
VARIOUS NOTES
John Berger's now classic article "Ways of Seeing" (1972) revolutionarily, for his time, analyses the manner in which men and women are culturally represented, and the subsequent results these representations have on their conduct and self as well and mutual perception. In "Ways of Seeing" Berger claims that the representations of men and women in visual culture entice different "gazes", different ways in which they are looked at, with men having the legitimization of examining women, and women – also examine women.
At the opening of "Ways of Seeing' John Berger notes that the cultural presence of the woman is still very much different from that of the man. Berger argues that a man's presence in the world is all about is potency and is related to what he can do, power and ability. On the other hand, Berger says, a woman's presence is always related to itself, not the world, and she does not represent potential but rather only her herself, and what can or cannot be done to her, never by her. The sources of this identity are for Berger the age old notion that the woman was destined to take care of the man. He argues that as a result the woman is always self-conscious, always aware of her own presence in every action she performs. The woman constantly imagines and surveys herself and by this her identity is split between that of the surveyor and that of the one being surveyed – the two rules that she has in relation to herself. For this reason, Berger notes, her self value is measured through the manner in which she is portrayed, in her own eyes, in others' eyes and in men's eyes.
Men, says Berger, survey women before they relate to them and the results of this measuring determine their relation to the woman. As a result all of women's actions and appearance are indications of the manner in which she would like to be treated. That is, a woman's actions indicate the way she would like to be observed, contrary to man's actions which are just actions. Berger simplifies this notion by arguing that "men act – women appear". Women look at themselves being looked at. The surveying woman is a man, the surveyed woman is a woman, and by this the woman objectifies herself as a subject of a gaze, this is the meaning of Berger's title "Ways of Seeing" – essentially meaning that there are different ways of seeing man and woman. This means that the text is much more open to interpretation, much more fluid in its meaning than previously thought.