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"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.
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Galaxies, stars, planets and now spaceships rush about the universe, and we have a sense of time passing because the positions of objects change. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
214 of 217 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Berger's book is as relevant today as it was in the 1970s.,
By
This review is from: Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series (Paperback)
How can a paperback book that was first published in 1972 by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books still be held in such high esteem by its readers. Could this inexpensive book really have survived the ravages of time? The answer to this later question is evidently yes. Despite its age this book remains on most Cultural and Media studies courses lists of recommended reading and is even compulsory on some. The book itself is comprised of six independent, and yet linked, essays. The first textual essay opens with the words 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak'. This essay sets the scene for all of the following essays. It identifies that we live in a world of visual imagery. Three of the essays are collections of images. Many of these have been stripped of their titles or any explanation as to who or what they represent therefore allowing the spectator to interpret them themselves. Essay number 3 looks at the nude but more importantly how the social presence of a woman is different from that of a man. Essay number 5 looks at art though mainly explores the differences between looking at or seeing a painting and the desire to possess it. It draws on the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss to illustrate this point. It then slowly teaches the reader how to deconstruct an image and goes into great depth to explain how every small detail is an integral part of the final overall reading. The final essay is about publicity. Which is as relevant now as it has ever been. Even in this technologically changing world publicity still uses the past to sell the future. The essays do not need to be read in any particular order, which makes it a very useful dip-in book and its size makes it easy to carry it around either in a bag or perhaps a large pocket. It is well written and is therefore a delight to read. As strange as this may seem, a quote published in the book from an article written by Dziga Vertov, a soviet film director, makes a timely eulogy for the book itself. 'My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you'. Although Vertov was talking about a film camera this quote could so easily describe the intention of the book itself. So the answer to why this book continues to be held in such high esteem is simple. As long as we have eyes to see, visual imagery will remain an important signifier of our culture. In order to understand our culture we need to be able to read these images. This book helps the reader achieve this. So this little timeless paperback book will remain in pride of place amongst the multitude of hard cover books on my office shelf and no doubt the shelves of many homes and University libraries for many years to come. I would recommend it to anyone.
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If it's outdated now, it's because it opened a new era,
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This review is from: Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series (Paperback)
'Ways of Seeing' is a book which some readers may find a bit puzzling. The ads reproduced in its pages look naive to us, in their unsophisticated emphasis on luxury and glamour, and Berger's commentary on advertising may seem a bit simple, but if so it's because he was one of the first and best critics to compare the effects and uses of advertising and fine art. The main difference between him and most contemporary commentators is that Berger had an independent perspective that they lack; his analysis has far more steel and indignation than the work of someone like Peter York, who comments on ads from the insider's perspective of "Is it effective or not?" Berger refuses to be seduced into talking about ads on their own terms. While the specific tactics used in advertising may be different now from what they were when this book was originally published, the basic strategy is still the same as it will ever be: to sell us not a product but a lifestyle.
Anyone who has travelled in a less-well-off country that has a functioning advertising industry (Greece, for instance) will have noticed that billboard ads there tend to be like early 70s ads in richer countries: they promote a dream of luxury, wealth and sophistication. Ads in the UK and Ireland are aimed at people who already think of themselves as reasonably wealthy and sophisticated, and so UK and Irish ads tend to promote an idea of the consumer as being rootsy, down-to-earth, unpretentious, sensible - all the things that we secretly fear we aren't. The tactic is different, but the strategy (to play on the consumer's hopes and fears about what kind of person they are) is the same. Berger's work is hardly full of undigested chunks of Marxist doctrine, unlike the far more impenetrable and far less useful work of (e.g.) the Art & Language group. If you come across his work when you're young or ignorant enough, he is one of the most liberating writers around. He teaches you not to agree with him, but how to be critical in the first place; he provokes you into wondering if and how he could be right, which is a gift from a writer to a reader. This is a relatively entry-level Berger. The early novels are not really very good, except for the first one, "A Painter of our Time". The Booker-winning "G" is a masterpiece, and the more recent fiction has been equally excellent but different in tone and method. The book-length non-fiction, such as "A Fortunate Man", "A Seventh Man", "Another Way of Telling", is all superb. He is one of the best English writers and as he passes 80, his work shows no sign of declining in quality or intensity. It should be stated that this is only the accompanying book of a TV series which, shamefully, isn't available on DVD. "Ways of Seeing" the programme is still pretty mind-blowing, right from the cheeky opening sequence where Berger appears to cut up an actual Botticelli. The whole show is, or used to be, available in bits on YouTube. I would rather sit through a TV show by Berger than the whole of Kenneth Clark's contemporary and far more expensive "Civilisation", which has been released on DVD.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ways of squinting?,
By
This review is from: Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I must first confess that I am not an art historian, nor have I any wish to be. I came to this book from the perspective of a photographer looking for insight into how and why we see things the way we do,and the relationship between the artist and image, and between the image and the viewer. In this respect this book has much of value to offer, and is clearly considered 'essential reading' with good reason. Of course some of the ideas, particularly the political perspectives, are dated. That is inevitable and forgivable. Every work is a product of it's time, and the entire political and social map has been re-drawn since this was written. What was of value to the reader then is still so now.
My one damning criticism of this book is that, especially as it is an exploration of the visual, the quality of the reproductions is a complete disaster. Tiny, indistinct monochrome illustrations hamper the written essays and render the purely pictorial ones completely 'unreadable'. If there is a pricier hardback edition of this book available, with proper reproductions, it would be well worth the investment. If not, by all means buys the paperback, but be aware that you will only get about half of the work's true value from it.
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