Ways of Seeing"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 the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) 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 the 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 to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" -Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling |
From inside the book
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Page 21
... original , that it is a famous painting of which somewhere one has already seen a reproduction . But in either case the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction . It is no longer what its image ...
... original , that it is a famous painting of which somewhere one has already seen a reproduction . But in either case the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction . It is no longer what its image ...
Page 30
... original works of art except a sense of awe because they have survived . The way original works of art are usually approached through museum catalogues , guides , — - hired cassettes , etc. is not the only way they might be approached ...
... original works of art except a sense of awe because they have survived . The way original works of art are usually approached through museum catalogues , guides , — - hired cassettes , etc. is not the only way they might be approached ...
Page 31
John Berger. WOMAN POURING MILK BY VERMEER 1632-1675 Original paintings are silent and still in a sense that information never is . Even a reproduction hung on a wall is not comparable in this respect for in the original the silence and ...
John Berger. WOMAN POURING MILK BY VERMEER 1632-1675 Original paintings are silent and still in a sense that information never is . Even a reproduction hung on a wall is not comparable in this respect for in the original the silence and ...
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ambassadors architecture Art Gallery artist badedas Barclaycard become bottom left CALIFORNIA/SANTA CRUZ UNIVERSITY camera centre comes before words CRUZ The University culture envy essays European oil painting everything experience expression Frans Hals Frans Hals Museum Gainsborough Glamour imagination Ingres John Berger Judgement of Paris Kenneth Clark Key of Dreams Kunsthistorisches Museum landscape language of oil Leonardo da Vinci Library The University lives London look Louvre Manet meaning Musée mystification naked nakedness National Gallery never nude object offers oil painting original painter past Penguin photographs picture 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 Thomas Gainsborough Tintoretto top left top right unique University Library UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/SANTA Venus Virgin visible visual Wallace Collection woman women