You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture a textbook about gender and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. (Btw, there is a pretty awesome moment at 4:38 of the third installment.) (No doubt, his call for skepticism certainly can be applied to Sociological Images.)īut reproduction and the multiplication of meaning also makes it easier to make connections and have personalized reactions. The art critic, for example, tells us what to think about a piece of art. He then talks about how our experience of art is mediated by media (whether it be an art book or a discussion of art in a television program), so that our reaction to it is inevitably shaped by its re-interpretation. From the past where the originality of the painting and the way the painter wants to portray it so that the spectator could see the meaning of what was trying to be presented, to the now modern day view of the art. This, he argues, has multiplied a work of art’s possible meanings.Īs an aside, he makes an interesting argument that the obsession with authenticity - “usually linked with cash value,” he says, “but also invoked in the name of culture and civilization” - is actually “a substitute for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.” Rhetorical Analysis Essay Ways of Seeing In John Berger’s essay, Ways of Seeing he discusses how art is being examined. No longer something we pilgrimage to, to consume in a very specific context, they come to us. The episode is a bit slow (for my taste), but has some interesting ideas.įirst he argues that the ability to reproduce works of art in books, on posters, postcards, and television screens means that art is experienced in a decontextualized way (or in the context of, say, your living room). In the first episode of the documentary (in four parts below) he asks how the ease of reproduction made possible by the camera (both still and moving) has changed the meaning of art. Berger was is a artist, author, and art critic. alerted us to the availability of the first episode of John Berger’s 1972 BBC documentary, Ways of Seeing. In order to achieve this dominance over art ideology and the poor, Berger maintains the elite often resorted to the creation of myths related to art that would further legitimize their power and the status quo.Christina W. Berger reveals that wealthy Europeans used art to reinforce the notion that the elite were superior to the poor. They are landowners and their proprietary attitude towards what surrounds them is visible in their stance and their expressions" (107).īerger also shows that class and race played a part in shaping art, like the examples of the wealthy painted as sitting above or higher than their servants or slaves. Literally as well as figuratively, the 'mechanical eye' forged a new way of seeing compared to painting, 'The camera showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual. Andrews" by Gainsborough, "They are not a couple in Nature as Rousseau imagined nature. John Berger's Ways of Seeing In Ways of Seeing, John Berger provides a discussion of the changes wrought by the invention of the camera. He uses one of Gainsborough's paintings to reveal this. Berger offers many examples to show a Marxist analysis of art, arguing that most artwork reveals the ideas and attitudes dominant among the wealthy during the era they were created. This is especially true for different cultures in Berger's view, since he believes that social and political forces are responsible for shaping the values and ideology in artwork. For example Berger says 'The way we see things is affected by what we know and believe. Primarily, Berger argues that since the camera any object that is properly seen leads to an understanding of capitalist society.īerger makes an argument that any art object we look at is perceived differently by different people in different times and space. John Bergers essay 'Ways Of Seeing' deals with how humans perceive the world, and how differing thoughts, beliefs and minds perceive different images. What you saw was relative to your position in time and space" (Berger 18). What you saw depended upon where you were when. Over the course of just four episodes, Berger implores us to look at centuries-old masterpieces from. Literally as well as figuratively, the "mechanical eye" forged a new way of seeing compared to painting, "The camera showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual. John Berger’s television show Ways of Seeing is a hugely important work of critical theory. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger provides a discussion of the changes wrought by the invention of the camera.
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