The first edition of John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” came on the market in 1972. Advertising, Communication, Art, over the years, “Ways of Seeing” has become an indispensable title in art theory and visual communication.
And perhaps today many of his approaches may already seem obvious, but I fear that they still need to be refreshed, apart from the fact that his argument and analysis continue to make him indispensable.
One of the basic concepts from which Berger starts is that what we know or believe affects the way we see things and how we interpret them.
“We only see what we look at”, Einstein already said something like that has a certain relationship, that everything that man ignores does not exist for him. Therefore, the universe of each is summarized to the extent of their knowledge
In the book Berger analyzes four aspects related to the interpretation of oil painting:
On the one hand the transformation of the meaning of the original work due to its reproductions. The advent of photography radically changed the way we observe art. Before only a minority could enjoy art, and now, from an elitist conception, it has moved to a “democratization” of art. Today we can find reproductions of works of art in any book or postcard, or on our own mobile phone. Art has become accessible to anyone, but it also carries a risk: it is possible to manipulate its message. And there are a few examples in the book.
“Photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph we are aware, even if only weakly, that the photographer chose this particular view from a myriad of other possible […] The photographer’s way of seeing is reflected in his choice of theme.”
Another aspect that he analyzes is the continued use of women as a pictorial object:
Berger goes back to Adam and Eve and the apple story, “What’s the most remarkable thing about this story? They become aware of His nakedness because they look at each other differently because they ate the apple.” “Nudity was engendered in the mind of the spectator.”
“You paint a naked woman because you enjoy looking at her. If you then put a mirror in his hand and title the painting Vanity, you morally condemn the woman for the nudity you have represented for your own pleasure. But the actual function of the mirror was very different. It was meant for the woman to agree to treat herself primarily as a spectacle. “
“To be naked is to be yourself. Being naked is tantamount to being seen naked by others, and yet not being recognized by oneself. For a naked body to become ‘a nude’ it must be seen as an object. (And seeing it as an object encourages using it as an object.) Nudity reveals itself. The nude is on display.”
“… in other non-European traditions — Hindu art, Persian art, African art, pre-Columbian art — nudity is never supine in this way. And if the subject of a play is sexual attraction, it is more likely to show an active sexual love between two people, the woman as active as the man, the actions of one absorbing the other. “
“In the form – art of the European nude, the painters and spectators-owners were usually men, and the people treated as objects, usually women. This unequal relationship is so deeply rooted in our culture that it still structures the consciousness of many women. They do with themselves what men do with them. They supervise, like men, their own femininity.”
Another aspect he analyzes is how the origin of oil painting is related to the sense of ownership, “art of any era tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class,”, “Art it is a sign of opulence, it is part of the good life; it is part of the furniture that the world attributes to the rich “
Berger, does not criticize art “per se,” but to the “cultural establishment” that interprets and filters the work of artists and defines “the relationship between their ‘tradition’ and their ‘masters’.”
“certain exceptional artists have departed in exceptional circumstances from the norms of tradition and have produced works diametrically opposed to their values; however, these artists have been hailed as the supreme representatives of the
tradition, a claim that has always been facilitated by the fact that, after his death, tradition has closed around his work, has assimilated some minor technical innovations and has continued its path as if none of its principles had suffered the least disturbance. That explains why Rembrandt, Vermeer, Poussin, Chardin, Goya or Turner had no followers but only superficial imitators. “
The impact and use that advertising makes of images and art:
“advertising has understood the tradition of oil painting much better than most art historians. He has grasped the implications of the relationship between the work of art and its spectator-owner, and seeks to persuade and flatter with them the spectator-purchase.dor. “
“Advertising is the culture of consumer society. It disseminates through images what society believes in itself.”
“Advertising is a kind of philosophical system. He explains everything in his own terms. He plays in the world.”
The book emerged as an adaptation of the award-winning four-episode series that John Berger presented to the BBC in 1972’s “Ways of seeing”. That same year, Berger won the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel G., and caused a great stir by giving half the prize money to the British “Black Panthers” party: