Response to "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger

My first reaction to the book Ways of Seeing by John Berger was my reaction to the cover art. I was really confused by the images being shown next to unrelated words. The author discusses how this relates to the separation of what we see and what we know, which helps to make the artwork make more sense, as the words and images do not change our opinions of what we already know about them.
When I got to the second chapter of the book, I started to believe the author was portraying a stereotype. The images shown in this chapter were all of women, and were mainly ones concerned with beauty and vanity. This seemed to imply that all women are self-absorbed, and that there aren’t any men who act this way. I went on to read chapter three, and found many other opinions which I felt were jumping to potentially false conclusions about women. For instance, a quote states “To be born a woman has been to be born…into the keeping of men.” So all women have to be dependent on men? I don’t think so. The author then makes some statements about why women act the way they do, which is something I highly doubt that a male author would know the whole truth about. Other parts of this chapter tell about motives for why the artworks were made. The book says that paintings of women portrayed females as objects. These artworks were aimed at a male audience, and the “women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own.” Being a girl, I was pretty disgusted with some of the things said about women, as I definitely do not support the portrayal of women as mere objects. However, I actually could see those as being the painters’ motives. I feel the way women are portrayed today can be the same, as many portraits are ones which focus on a woman’s physical appearance first, putting personality second. Also, I don’t think that many works by female artists were shown in Ways of Seeing.
The book Ways of Seeing discusses many ways in which people can view things, and how this relates to artworks. A person’s sense of touch is one way in which they “see” something. If you touch an object, you gain a way of being able to describe it. You can also compare its feeling and texture to other ones which you are familiar with. It gives us a better sense of understanding something.
Ways of Seeing addresses how art from the past is seen today, and the connection it makes between past and present. I thought that this was really interesting. A painting from many years ago will continue to portray the same scene, but the way in which people look at it can change with time. In this sense, a work of art can be a piece of history, and can give modern people a way to learn more about people from the past. Also, since art is open to interpretation, people can assume it means something completely different from the artist’s original intended meaning.
In the first chapter, Berger states that “Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph.” I agree with this statement. I have become more interested in photography during the past few years. I feel like photography is an art form, like drawing or painting. The photographer has a vision of what they would like to portray, and has reasons for why they believe their picture will be an effective piece of art, whether it has visual beauty or makes a strong statement.
1. Berger, John. (1972). Ways of Seeing, (pg 46.)
2. Berger, John. (1972). Ways of Seeing, (pg 55.)
3. Berger, John. (1972). Ways of Seeing, (pg 10.)