Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” -- so opens John Berger’s revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most 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. |
From inside the book
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Page 91
... ambassadors wanted it put there . But all agree that it was a kind of memento mori : a play on the medieval idea of using a skull as a continual reminder of the presence of death . What is significant for our argument is that the skull ...
... ambassadors wanted it put there . But all agree that it was a kind of memento mori : a play on the medieval idea of using a skull as a continual reminder of the presence of death . What is significant for our argument is that the skull ...
Page 94
... ambassadors , to their presence as men . This will mean reading the painting differently : not at the level of what it shows within its frame , but at the level of what it refers to outside it . THE AMBASSADORS BY HOLBEIN 1497 / 8-1543 ...
... ambassadors , to their presence as men . This will mean reading the painting differently : not at the level of what it shows within its frame , but at the level of what it refers to outside it . THE AMBASSADORS BY HOLBEIN 1497 / 8-1543 ...
Page 96
... ambassadors belonged to a class who were convinced that the world was there to furnish their residence in it . In its extreme form this conviction was confirmed by the relations being set up between colonial conqueror and the colonized ...
... ambassadors belonged to a class who were convinced that the world was there to furnish their residence in it . In its extreme form this conviction was confirmed by the relations being set up between colonial conqueror and the colonized ...
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ambassadors Art Gallery artists authority badedas Barclaycard become bottom left camera century continually contradiction contrast Cooltan culture Cupid depicted Edouard Manet envy essays European oil painting everything experience expression Frans Hals Frans Hals Museum Gainsborough Glamour imagine Judgement of Paris Key of Dreams Kunsthistorisches Museum landscape Leonardo da Vinci lives London look Louvre magazine MAGDALEN Magritte meaning MEN'S ALMS HOUSE Morny Soap Musée mystery mystification naked nakedness National Gallery never Nikolaus Pevsner nude object offers oil painting OLD MEN'S ALMS original painter past Penguin Books photographs picture Pieter pleasure portrait present publicity image relation Rembrandt Rembrandt van Ryn Renaissance René Magritte reproduction Rocks by Leonardo Rubens Scottish Amicable seen sense sexual sight social spectator spectator-buyer spectator-owner surrounded Susannah Tate Gallery things top left top right tradition of oil unique Venus Virgin visible visual Wallace Collection woman women write to Penguin