John Berger
Ways of Seeing
1972
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• Video, as per all texts on any Bibliography
this semester, is on the Academic Reserve
• Ask for the video at the Helpdesk at the
entrance to the Library
• Quote Title and Shelf Number: V2194
• Borrow headphones.
• Watch on video player on 5th floor of
Library
‘The relation between
what we see and what we
know is never settled’
John Berger. Ways of Seeing.
1972
John Berger. 1926 • Ways of Seeing. 1972.
• BBC television series. 4 Programmes.
• Critical response to Kenneth Clark’s
television series: ‘Civilisation’. 1969.
• Book published in same year; 1972. 4
essays / 3 visual essays.
• Reading: final and 7th essay.
John Berger: reading
Berger, J. Ways of Seeing. London: British
Broadcasting Corporation and Penquin
Books Limited; 1972, pp132-35.
Books
On Berger:
• Murray, C. Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century.
London: Routledge; 2003, pp49-55.
On concurrent criticism of consumer culture and mass
media:
• Raizman, D. Beyond High and Low Art: Revisiting the Critique
of Mass Culture. In: Raizman, D. A history of modern design.
Graphics and products since the industrial revolution. London:
Laurence King Publishing Ltd; 2004, pp311-13.
For a recent synopsis of the relationship between art,
money and power, see:
• Freeland, C. Money, markets, museums. In: Freeland, C. But
is it art? Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001, pp90-121
Other
Website:
• A website supporting a series of cultural events
designed around the work of John Berger in 2005. It
includes a biography, a bibliography and links to a series
of newspaper articles and interviews with Berger.
• http://www.johnberger.org/
Video
• Ways of Seeing. 4. The Language of Advertising
(videocassette). London: British Broadcasting
Corporation; 2001.
• (There are 4 videos in total, all worth viewing, but 2 in
the collection are currently damaged. On re-order.)
Berger’s Ways of Seeing
• A turning point in the history and analysis of art
• Introduces a political (Marxist, left wing) challenge
to the traditional art historian.
• Does not separate and privilege fine art from a
wider analysis of visual culture
• Critiques the elitism of the European oil painting,
analysing it in relation to contemporary media and
advertising
• Mirrors concerns in the contemporary art world
critiquing the connection between commercialism
and the true purpose of art
• Mirrors the concerns of previous and contemporary
thinkers over the manipulative nature of mass
media and consumer culture
E. Panofsky (1892-1968) -The Iconographic
Method
• Primary – straightforward
description.
• Secondary – more specific.
identification through specific
details.
• Intrinsic – introduces details
of the wider artistic and
historical context:
• as belonging to a time, place
and age, texts, documents,
precedents, contemporary
influences, the prevalent style
of the artist etc.
The crisis of art history
“aesthetes and
iconographers on the one
hand tending the shrines of
genius and antiquity, and
revolutionaries on the other,
bent on overturning the
temples of art, mammon and
patriarchy
(Fernie, E. 1995)
Thomas Gainsborough.
Mr and Mrs Andrews. c1750
Kenneth Clark on Gainsborough in
‘Civilisation’
quoted in Ways of Seeing. P.106.
‘what he saw inspired him to put into his
pictures backgrounds as sensitively observed
as the corn-field in which are seated Mr and
Mrs Andrews. This enchanted work is
painted with such love and mastery….’
John Berger. Ways of Seeing. P.107
• ‘Why did Mr and Mrs Andrews commission
a portrait of themselves with a recognisable
landscape of their own land as
background?’
• ‘They are not a couple in nature as
Rousseau imagined nature. They are
landowners and their proprietary attitude
towards what surround them is visible in
their stance and their expressions’
The New Art History
• Contextual analyses from the
social history of art concentrate on
illuminating the wider cultural
context.
• The centre of gravity shifts from
objects towards social context and
issues of power.
‘Does the language of
publicity have anything in
common with that of oil
painting?’
John Berger. Ways of Seeing.
P134.
‘Ever since I was a student, I
have been aware of the
injustice, hypocrisy, cruelty,
wastefulness and alienation
of our bourgeois society as
reflected and expressed in
the field of art.’
J Berger. Permanent Red. 1979
‘it is necessary to see works
of art freed from all the
mystique which is attached
to them as property objects.
It then becomes possible to
see them ….in terms of
action’
J Berger. 1966
http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/sanford.htm
Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. 1970. Utah.
U.S.A.
Theodore Adorno. 1903-69.
‘The culture industry’
created false needs to passify
the consumer
Vance Packard.
The Hidden Persuaders.
1957
‘What the probers are looking
for, of course, are the whys of
our behaviour, so that they can
more effectively manipulate our
habits and our choices in their
favour….to probe why we are
afraid of banks, why we love
those big fat cars…’
V Packard. 1957
Ways of Seeing
4. The Language of Advertising