Analysis Of The Book Ways Of Seeing By John Berger

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print. The book, Ways of Seeing by John Berger is based on the concept that the way we see things. It explores our knowledge and past experiences. The reproduction and recreation of images and how that changes our own thoughts on an artwork. The book reveiws the history of nude women in art, and the negative impacts of advertising in the art world. The book is organized in a form of chapters, including pictorials. I chose to write my essay following a similar form. I follow the flow of the chapters, with a summary of each chapter, as well as a reflection. In the first pages of John Berger s, Ways Of Seeing, he explains what it means to See . He explains as children, we are first able to look, not speak, nor walk. This is an interesting way of approaching the act of seeing. To see is different from looking. To see is to understand whereas to look is to simply glance. For Berger, ‘An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced . . . which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance . . .’ (p. 9). I interpreted this as a way of saying, that the reproduction changes the entire context of the artwork. Berger goes on to point out the human fascination with relating to each other, and our yearning to understand history. Berger says that maybe paintings weren t made to be interpreted as legitimate history, but are made to represent something that is not there.Show MoreRelatedHow We See and Read Images1247 Words   |  5 Pagesadvertisements are meant to capture the audience attent ion. Art and beauty attract the attention of the mind through the eye. John Berger, an English art critic, novelist, painter, and poet tried to explain the way human beings view things and how this is affected by our knowledge, beliefs and what they assume to be right. He explains that what we see has been recreated or reproduced. 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