John Berger

Chapter 4 of Ways of Seeing by John Berger is a picture essay. It begins with religious pieces of art, mainly from the thirteenth century. It carries on with work from the 14th, 15th 16th century and so on. The images contain subjects like deceased bodies, children, life, nudity etc. The essay is bringing us through the history of art and what was considered important during those years. The next chapter is about oil paintings. As economies grew so did people’s want for materialistic objects. At the time, oil paintings were the only visuals and each were one of a kind. Oil painting developed with the classes. Classes became tied to having money, no matter how one got it, oil painting changed to reflect this. Not only was there a desire for…

Seeing is a distant way of learning and exchanging with communicating. Moreover, seeing is a way to empower an individual to describe to the environment. In the article “ Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, he states that “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak”(145). Every one of us sees things differently because stationary and individual can be different. An opinion can never make settlement because there are stand together between the words used and the…

Within the books of John Berger and Michel Foucault’s thoughts and ideas, they’re shown throughout their short anthologies. In “Ways of Seeing” and Panopticism; we see a lot of similarities and differences between the authors. From the way they write, to the way they express, to the way they think about their emotions and how they translate it out to their readers. John Berger talks about how we have our own perspectives on seeing things and how we can maintain different views in our society.…

In the first chapter of “Ways of Seeing” the author, John Berger, mentions many points about how the reproduction of art has changed the way we see art as a whole. Specifically, in the last paragraph he makes a strong statement about how art of the past has now become a political issue. In the first sentence of the paragraph he starts off by saying that “The art of the past no longer exists as it once did”, which means that art no longer exists as it did. Since it was once isolated, part of a…

In Susan Bordo’s essay, “Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body,” she discusses the appearance of men in advertisements while simultaneously juxtaposing them to female advertisements. Through the piece, she includes many sample advertisements to develop her point. The photos are placed next to the corresponding sections which help make her argument clearer. She also relates her point to John Berger, as she tries to demystify these advertisements in a similar way he tried to do so about artwork in…

people see may not be what people actually want to see or what they were supposed to see. The visual world around individuals is tinkered with by the individuals who sit at the top of the social pyramid. The marketing strategies that are implemented by the individuals at the top are responsible for are changing the visual world around the common man. Ethan Watters in his essay “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” discusses the attempt by pharmaceutical corporations to effectively market…

you, even things completely out of someone’s control. Pressures to adhere to societal norms can cause long-term harm for certain people, but others can take this concept in stride. Due to different upbringings, along with different environmental influences, it allows for a range of perspectives. “Girl” by Alexander Chee, a reflection piece on Chee’s experience with femininity, along with the Slam Poetry video “Pretty” by Katie Makkai about her experience with being physically desirable due to…

In John Berger’s book Understanding a Photograph, he argues that there is a distinct discontinuity between an individual viewing a photo, and the actual photo. A picture solely preserves a single moment in time, and while they often act to tell a story, the medium cannot be fully interpreted without knowing the story that surrounds it. Although there is a definite connection between a photograph and the narrative that corresponds with it, the photo is only a visual aid for the story; it does not…

When a thousand people possess the privilege that allows them to freely reach the top, another two-thousand will still find themselves scrambling to take the first step up the mountain, completely out of control. In the first of John Berger’s essays compiled in Ways of Seeing, he utilizes the subject of art to discuss the dangers of allowing this sense of powerlessness to consume every aspect of our being, as those who reign superior ritually subdue us. He writes, “A people or a class which is…

“The Gaze,” also known as “The Male Gaze,” is a concept that has been prevalent in the arts for hundreds of years. Throughout history, male viewers have perceived women as taboo, pleasurable, beautiful, offensive, and sometimes all of these at once. These unfair judgments were dismissed far too often. Sometimes, the use of an “imagined spectator,” where the viewer of a piece becomes an essential part of it, draws awareness and strong responses to these issues. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger…