John Berger - Ways of Seeing

John Berger's biography



John Berger, novelist, painter, and art historian, was born in London in 1926. After serving in the British army from 1944 to 1946, he attended the Central School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art in London. He taught drawing from 1948 to 1955, and has continued to paint all of his life. His art has been exhibited at the Wildenstein, Redfern, and Leicester galleries in London.

In 1952 Berger began writing for London's New Statesman, and quickly became an influential Marxist art critic. Since then he has published a number of art books including the famous Ways of Seeing, which was turned into a television series by the BBC.



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Response to Berger's essay



In John Berger's essay there were many interesting things about ways of seeing, which changed my way of thinking about paintings and looking at them. He mentions things that you wouldn't normally think of when you look at something. As he says, 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak', we can infer that what you see cannot easily be replaced with words.

When describing the world you cannot explain exactly in words what you see, as the beauty of the world can only be experienced through the eyes. There are heaps of books which explain the beauty of the world. However, even though there are pictures illustrated to support the description, the explanation is limited, because to actually understand the beauty of something, you have to see, feel and experience it with your own eyes. It is the same with the paintings.

Another thing which affects your way of seeing is the knowledge, 'The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.' The more knowledge you have, the more differently you will look at things. In Berger's essay he talks about how the symbolism of fire changed the way people saw and understood it. For some people fire could link with a bad experience like burns, but for others it might symbolise a strong feeling like love or anger.

When looking at paintings, personally if I know the story behind it and know why it was painted, it changes my way of looking at it. With the knowledge you can start to recognize and look for things that you have missed out before, and then it leads onto thinking about why the painter has painted exactly that person or that object.

Berger also mentions that we as humans can be visible to others. Once we have the consciousness that we can be seen, we start to think of how people see you and weather you are a happy or sombre person. So the gap between the words and seeing is huge as looking comes first before words.

Paintings are magical in their own way, as they can take you back into the past, present or the future. They show 'how something or somebody had once looked', which is interesting. In the past people used to paint because no text from the past colud offer such a 'direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times.' When looking at paintings we can situate ourselves in the history as we can see how it was at that time. But at the same time we look on the past with modern eyes.

Perspective in paintings is very important. Now we can see art as nobody saw it before and therefore we perceive it in a different way. 'Perspective makes the single eye the centre of the visible world', which makes our experience of looking at the painting different from the people ollustarted in the painting. Also, another thing that changes the way of looking at the painting is the market value. People are blinded by the price and they don't realise the beauty of the painting. It impresses people, 'not because of what is shows - not because of the meaning of its image. It has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value.' Because there is one original, it makes people think that it is special. However, I think that understanding the painting and feeling it is more worth than actually having it and not knowing what it shows and means.

Now when I analyse and image or look at something, I try to understand it, which makes the experience of looking more interesting and fun.