Way of Seeing Things Summary Write an essay about your work of art. Use the description that you wrote (it should be used here as your introduction) to com
Way of Seeing Things Summary Write an essay about your work of art. Use the description that you wrote (it should be used here as your introduction) to come up with an interpretation of the work of art. Then, develop that interpretation into a thesis statement, and defend your thesis by referring to your observations and using reason/logic. The essay should be written in MLA format and should use NO outside research. You may, however, refer to John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” to help discuss your work of art.800 words minimum. Running head: WAY OF SEEING THINGS
1
Way of Seeing Things
Observation in every context is the most critical aspect in literature. The first observation
of a picture strongly influences understanding of it. Images communicate more than just simple
words. The degree of understanding is dependent on past experiences. If someone is used to
specific observations and beliefs, he/she will always interpret any observation per the experience
(John, Blomberg, Fox, Dibb, and Hollis, 1972). An image is a good way of communication and
facilitates in the recalling of texts more than just words. However, images are prone to a variety
of understandings depending on the observation that each person has regarding the specific
experience. However, the image is more vibrant and specific than most of the pieces of literature
provided that the models produce a high level of imagination. The photographers intention
influences the angle of taking the photographs and at times, can be misleading. However, images
are subject to misinterpretation, depending on the observer experience. It is essential and more
worthy to provide images followed by texts to ensure more understanding of the text.
Response
It is true that the observation determines by a great extent, the understanding of the text
more than just mere words. Images help to insight the past experiences of a person by a great
extent. History and memories are very vital in the explanation and understanding of a text. The
experience influences the attitude that one takes up different forms of activities and the images.
Images are more important in the transmission of a message, especially when communicating on
WAY OF SEEING THINGS
a process. Pictures help in the understanding of the culture of different people depending on the
mode of dressing, and one can deduct the customs without even having to have words
representation. It is also true that the images can be construed in different ways for the same
image all depending on the experience. Authors should consider utilizing both image and text to
add value on literature and void exaggeration of understanding.
2
WAY OF SEEING THINGS
3
References
Berger, J., Blomberg, S, Fox C., Dibb, M., Hollis, R., (1972). Ways of seeing. London: British
Broadcasting Corp. and Penguin Books.
Running head: WAY OF SEEING THINGS
1
Way of Seeing Things
Observation in every context is the most critical aspect in literature. The first observation
of a picture strongly influences understanding of it. Images communicate more than just simple
words. The degree of understanding is dependent on past experiences. If someone is used to
specific observations and beliefs, he/she will always interpret any observation per the experience
(John, Blomberg, Fox, Dibb, and Hollis, 1972). An image is a good way of communication and
facilitates in the recalling of texts more than just words. However, images are prone to a variety
of understandings depending on the observation that each person has regarding the specific
experience. However, the image is more vibrant and specific than most of the pieces of literature
provided that the models produce a high level of imagination. The photographers intention
influences the angle of taking the photographs and at times, can be misleading. However, images
are subject to misinterpretation, depending on the observer experience. It is essential and more
worthy to provide images followed by texts to ensure more understanding of the text.
Response
It is true that the observation determines by a great extent, the understanding of the text
more than just mere words. Images help to insight the past experiences of a person by a great
extent. History and memories are very vital in the explanation and understanding of a text. The
experience influences the attitude that one takes up different forms of activities and the images.
Images are more important in the transmission of a message, especially when communicating on
WAY OF SEEING THINGS
a process. Pictures help in the understanding of the culture of different people depending on the
mode of dressing, and one can deduct the customs without even having to have words
representation. It is also true that the images can be construed in different ways for the same
image all depending on the experience. Authors should consider utilizing both image and text to
add value on literature and void exaggeration of understanding.
2
WAY OF SEEING THINGS
3
References
Berger, J., Blomberg, S, Fox C., Dibb, M., Hollis, R., (1972). Ways of seeing. London: British
Broadcasting Corp. and Penguin Books.
A book made by
John Berger, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox,
M ichael Dibb, Richard Hollis
WAYS OF SEEING
based on the BBC television series with
J O H N BERGER
B ritish Broadcasting Corporation
and Penguin Books
Published by
the British Broadcasting Corporation, 35 M arylebone High Street, London W1M 4AA
ISBN 0 563 122447
and by
P E N G U IN BO O K S
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ. England
Viking Penguin, a division o f Penguin Books USA Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U SA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd. 2801 John Street. M arkham. Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd. 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10. New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth. Middlesex, England
ISBN 0 14 021631 6
First published in Great Britain by the
British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books Ltd 1972
30 29 28 27
First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press (A Richard Seaver Book) 1973
Published in Penguin Books in the United States o f America 1977
Copyright in all countries of the International Copyright Union 1972 by Penguin Books Ltd
All rights reserved
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Filmsel in M onophoto IJnivers
Except in the United States o f America, this book is sold subject to
the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
w.hich it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
N ote to the reader
This book has been made by five o f us. Our
s ta rtin g point w as some o f the ideas contained in th e television
series Ways of Seeing. W e have trie d to extend and elaborate
these ideas. They have influenced not only w h a t w e say but
also h o w w e have set about tryin g to say it. The fo rm o f the
book is as much to do w ith our purpose as the argum ents
contained w ith in it.
The book consists o f seven numbered essays.
They can be read in any order. Four o f the essays use w ords
and images, three o f them use only images. These purely
picto rial essays (on w ays o f seeing w om en and on various
con tradicto ry aspects o f th e tra d itio n o f the oil p ainting) are
intended to raise as many questions as th e verbal essays.
Som etim es in the pictorial essays no in form ation a t all is given
about the images reproduced because it seemed to us th a t
such in fo rm atio n m ight d is tra c t fro m the points being made.
In all cases, how ever, th is in fo rm ation can be found in the List
of Works Reproduced w h ich is printed a t the end o f th e book.
None o f the essays pretends to deal w ith more
than certain aspects o f each subject: particularly those aspects
th ro w n into relief by a modern historical consciousness.
Our principal aim has been to s ta rt a process o f questioning.
1
Seeing comes before w o rd s. The child looks and
recognizes before it can speak.
But there is also another sense in w hich seeing
conies before w o rd s. It is seeing w hich establishes our place
in the surrounding w o rld ; w e explain th a t w o rld w ith w ords,
but w o rd s can never undo the fa c t th a t w e are surrounded by
it. The relation b etw een w h a t w e see and w h a t w e k n o w is
never settled . Each evening w e see the sun set. W e know
th a t the earth is turning aw ay fro m it. Y e t th e know ledge, the
explanation, never q uite fits the sight. The S urrealist painter
M a g ritte com m ented on this a lw ays-p resen t gap betw een
w o rds and seeing in a painting called The Key of Dreams.
The w ay w e see things is a ffec te d by w h a t w e
k n o w or w h a t w e believe. In the M id d le Ages w hen men
believed in th e physical existence o f Hell the sight o f fire m ust
have m eant som ething d iffe re n t fro m w h a t it means today.
Nevertheless th e ir idea o f Hell ow ed a lo t to the sight o f fire
consuming and the ashes rem aining as w e ll as to th e ir
experience o f th e pain o f burns.
W hen in love, the sig ht o f the beloved has a
com pleteness w h ich no w o rd s and no embrace can m atch :
a com pleteness w hich only th e a ct o f m aking love can
tem porarily accom m odate.
Y e t this seeing w hich comes before w o rd s, and
can never be quite covered by them , is not a question o f
m echanically reacting to stim uli. ( I t can only be tho u g h t o f in
this w ay if one isolates the small p art o f the process w hich
concerns the eye’s retina.) W e only see w h a t w e look at. To
look is an act o f choice. As a result o f this act, w h a t w e see is
brought w ith in our reach – though not necessarily w ith in
arm ‘s reach. T o touch som ething is to situ ate oneself in
relation to it. (Close your eyes, move round the room and
8
notice h o w th e fa c u lty o f touch is like a s tatic, lim ited fo rm o f
sight.) W e never look at ju s t one th in g ; w e are alw ays looking
at tne relation b etw een things and ourselves. Our vision is
continually active, continually moving, continually holding
things in a circle around itse lf, co n stitu tin g w h a t is present
to us as w e are.
Soon a fte r w e can see, w e are a w are th a t w e can
also be seen. The eye o f the o ther com bines w ith our ow n eye
to m ake it fu lly credible th a t w e are p art o f th e visible w o rld .
I f w e accept th a t w e can see th a t hill over there,
w e propose th a t fro m th a t hill w e can be seen. The reciprocal
nature o f vision is more fundam ental than th a t o f spoken
dialogue. And o fte n dialogue is an a tte m p t to verbalize this an a tte m p t to explain how , e ith er m etaphorically or literally,
Jyou see th in g s ‘, and an a tte m p t to discover h o w ‘he sees
th in g s ‘.
In the sense in w hich w e use the w o rd in this
book, all im ages are m an-m ade.
An im age is a sight w hich has
been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of
appearances, w h ich has been detached fro m the place and tim e
9
in w hich it firs t made its appearance and preserved – fo r a fe w
m om ents or a fe w centuries. Every image embodies a w ay of
seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is
o ften assum ed, a mechanical record. Every tim e w e look a t a
photograph, w e are aw are, h ow ever slightly, o f the
photographer selecting th a t sig ht fro m an in fin ity o f o th er
possible sights. This is true even in the m ost casual fam ily
snapshot. The photographer’s w ay o f seeing is reflected in his
choice o f subject. The painter’s w ay o f seeing is reco n stitu ted
by the m arks he m akes on the canvas or paper. Y et, although
every im age embodies a w ay o f seeing, our perception or
appreciation o f an image depends also upon our ow n w a y o f
seeing. ( I t may be, fo r example, th a t Sheila is one fig u re am onj
tw e n ty ; but fo r our ow n reasons she is the one w e have eyes
fo r.)
Im ages w e re firs t made to conjure up the
appearances o f som ething th a t w a s absent. Gradually it
became evident th a t an im age could o u tlast w h a t it
represented; it then showed h ow som ething or som ebody had
once looked – and thus by im plication how the subject had
once been seen by o ther people. Later still the specific vision
o f the im age-m aker w as also recognized as p art o f the record.
An im age became a record o f h o w X had seen Y. This w a s the
result o f an increasing consciousness o f individuality,
accom panying an increasing aw areness o f history. It w o u ld be
rash to try to date th is last developm ent precisely. But
certainly in Europe such consciousness has existed since the
beginning o f the Renaissance.
No o th er kind o f relic or te x t fro m the past can
o ffe r such a d irect testim o ny about the w o rld w hich
surrounded other people at o th er tim es. In this respect
images are more precise and richer than lite ratu re. To say this
is not to deny the expressive or im aginative quality o f art,
treatin g it as mere docum entary evidence; the more imaginati%
the w o rk , the more profoundly it allo w s us to share the
a rtis t’s experience o f the visible.
10
Y e t w hen an image is presented as a w o rk o f art,
the w ay people look a t it is affected by a w h o le series o f learnt
assum ptions about art. Assum ptions concern ing :
Beauty
T ru th
Genius
Civilization
Form
Statu s
Taste, etc.
M any o f these assum ptions no longer accord w ith
the w o rld as it is. (The w o rld -a s -it-is is more than pure
objective fa c t, it includes consciousness.) O ut o f tru e w ith the
present, these assum ptions obscure the past. They m ystify
rather than clarify. The past is never there w a itin g to be
discovered, to be recognized fo r exactly w h a t it is. H istory
alw ays c o n s titu tes th e relation betw een a present and its past.
Consequently fe a r o f the present leads to m ystificatio n o f the
past. The past is not fo r living in ; it is a w e ll o f conclusions
from w hich w e d ra w in order to act. C ultural m ystificatio n o f
the past entails a double loss. W o rks o f a rt are made
unnecessarily rem ote. And the past o ffe rs us fe w e r
conclusions to com plete in action.
W hen w e ‘see’ a landscape, w e situ ate ourselves
in it. If w e ‘s a w ‘ th e a rt o f th e past, w e w o u ld situate
ourselves in history. W hen w e are prevented fro m seeing it,
w e are being deprived o f the history w h ic h belongs to us.
W ho b en efits fro m th is deprivation? In th e end, the a rt o f the
past is being m y stified because a privileged m inority is
striving to invent a history w h ich can retrospectively ju s tify
the role o f the ruling classes, and such a ju s tific a tio n can
no longer m ake sense in modern term s. And so, inevitably, it
m ystifies.
Let us consider a typical exam ple o f such
m ystificatio n. A tw o -v o lu m e study w as recently published on
Frans Hals.* It is the a u th o ritativ e w o rk to date on this painter.
As a book o f specialized a rt history it is no b e tte r and no
w orse than th e average.
The last tw o g reat paintings by Frans Hals p o rtn
the Governors and the Governesses o f an Alm s House fo r old
paupers in the Dutch seventeenth-century city o f Haarlem .
They w e re o ffic ia lly com m issioned p o rtraits. Hals, an old mail
12
o f over eighty, w as d estitu te. M o s t o f his life he had been in
debt. During th e w in te r o f 1664, the year he began painting
these pictures, he obtained three loads o f peat on public
charity, o th e rw is e he w o u ld have frozen to death. Those w h o
now sat fo r him w e re adm inistrators o f such public charity.
T he author records these fa c ts and then exp licitly
says th a t it w o u ld be incorrect to read into the paintings any
criticism o f th e s itte rs. There is no evidence, he says, th a t
Hals painted them in a s pirit o f b ittern ess. The author
considers them , how ever, rem arkable w o rk s o f a rt and
explains w h y. Here he w rite s o f the R egentesses:
Each woman speaks to us of the human condition with
equal importance. Each woman stands out with equal
clarity against the enormous dark surface, yet they are
linked by a firm rhythmical arrangement and the subdued
diagonal pattern formed by their heads and hands.
Subtle modulations of the deep, glowing blacks
contribute to the harmonious fusion of the whole and
form an unforgettable contrast with the powerful whites
and vivid flesh tones where the detached strokes reach
a peak of breadth and strength, (our italics)
The com positional unity o f a painting
contributes fundam entally to the p o w er o f its image. It is
reasonable to consider a painting’s com position. But here the
com position is w ritte n about as though it w e re in its e lf the
em otional charge o f the painting. Term s like harmonious fusion,
unforgettable contrast, reaching a peak of breadth and strength
tran s fe r th e em otion provoked by the image fro m the plane
of lived experience, to th a t of disinterested Jart
a p p r e c ia t io n A ll c o n flic t disappears. One is le ft w ith the
unchanging ‘h u m an c o n d itio n ‘, and th e painting considered as
a m arvellously made object.
Very little is know n about Hals or the Regents
w ho com m issioned him. It is not possible to produce
circum stantial evidence to establish w h a t th e ir relations w ere.
But there is the evidence o f the paintings them selves: the
evidence o f a group o f men and a group o f w om en as seen by
another man, the painter. Study th is evidence and judge fo r
yourself.
13
The a rt historian fears such d irect ju d g em en t:
As in so many other pictures by Hals, the penetrating
characterizations almost seduce us into believing that we
know the personality traits and even the habits of the
men and women portrayed.
W h a t is th is ‘s e d u c tio n ‘ he w rite s o f? It is
nothing less than the paintings w o rk in g upon*us. They w o rk
upon us because w e accept the w a y Hals saw his s itte rs . W e
do n o t accept this innocently. W e accept it in so fa r as it
corresponds to our ow n observation o f people, gestures, faces,
in s titu tio n s . This is possible because w e still live in a society
o f com parable social relations and moral values. And it is
precisely this w hich gives th e paintings th e ir psychological and
social urgency. It is this – not the painter’s skill as a ‘s e d u c e r’
– w hich convinces us th a t w e can k n o w the people portrayed.
The author continues:
In the case of some critics the seduction has been a
total success. It has, for example, been asserted that
the Regent in the tipped slouch hat, which hardly covers
any of his long, lank hair, and whose curiously set
eyes do not focus, was shown in a drunken state.
14
This, he suggests, is a libel. He argues th a t it w as
a fashion a t th a t tim e to w e ar hats on the side o f the head.
He cites medical opinion to prove th a t the Regent’s expression
could w e ll be the result o f a facial paralysis. He insists th a t th e
painting w o uld have been unacceptable to the Regents if one
o f them had been portrayed drunk. One m ight go on
discussing each o f these points fo r pages. (M e n in
seventeenth-century Holland w o re th e ir hats on the side o f
th e ir heads in order to be tho u g ht o f as adventurous and
pleasure-loving. Heavy drinking w a s an approved practice.
Etcetera.) But such a discussion w o u ld tak e us even fa rth e r
aw ay fro m th e only confron tatio n w h ich m atters and w h ich the
author is determ ined to evade.
In th is confro n tatio n the Regents and
Regentesses stare a t Hals, a d e s titu te old painter w h o has lost
his rep utatio n and lives o ff public c harity; he examines them
through th e eyes o f a pauper w h o m ust nevertheless try to be
objective, i.e., m ust try to surm ount th e w ay he sees as a
pauper. T his is the drama o f these paintings. A drama o f an
‘u n fo rg e tta b le c o n tra s t’.
M y s tific a tio n has little to do w ith the
vocabulary used. M y s tific a tio n is the process o f explaining
15
aw ay w h a t m ight o th e rw is e be evident. Hals w as the firs t
p o rtra itis t to paint the n ew characters an…
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