Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Part I - Introduction

The book is based on his BBC television series about critics of art in 1972. The series contains four Episodes that are still on youtube nowadays.
(Link of the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk&t=6s)

Talking about the book, the first chapter of the book is about the relationship between seeing and the world which many ideas were taken from Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". As I didn't read the quoted book written by Benjamin, my intention is not about discussing whether John has twisted Benjamin's ideas. My intention is to explore how John's writing affects our ways of seeing. 

Part II - Summary of the Book

Seeing and Meaning

Seeing comes before words in the sense that we speak for the things we identify as well as seeing establishes our surrounding world, and the world (i.e. the relationship between I and the object/knowledge/ social values/ personal values, etc.) will then affect the meaning of the things we see. Even the position and environment where we are standing affect what we see and what they mean for us. For example, a photo, showing the sight selected by a photograph, has a different perspective and meaning from other sights of seeing.

We interpret things we see by preconception and personal value so things have different meanings to different people.

"The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past...The past not for living in; it is a well of conclusion the past from which we draw in order to act." [1]

Therefore, even if we see artwork from the past, we situate ourselves in history. And art in history always was mystified as a privileged minority.

Rise of Mechanical Photos and Reproducing Images in Modern World

The camera changed the way men see a thing. In painting, the perspective techniques show a God-like view in which everything merges to a center infinitely but photos show that what you can see depends on your position in time and space. 

Furthermore, reproducing artworks redefines uniqueness from one only into originality and rarity, which drive artworks to be valued at a price in a market. And the meaning of artwork no longer attaches to itself now, it is transmittable, becomes information that can be changed (a part extracted from the whole artwork) and used. Words describing artwork further cover the original meaning of the work and exert an authority meaning on the work. 

"The experience of art, which at first was experience of ritual, was set apart from the rest of life - precisely in order to be able to exercise power over it...What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove it...They (art) have entered the mainstream of live over which they no longer, in themselves, have power." [2]

Women as An Object

The writer stated that the presence of men and women are different, where men depend on power and women depend on her expression of herself (both physically and mentally). This poses the surveyor and the surveyed nature in women and the result of their continuously observing themselves as an image to others. In this view, the writer concludes women's act is an indication of how she likes to be treated rather than expressing her emotion. 

"One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear." [3]

Since women are perceived as an object or images to be observed/ appreciated, naked women in paintings are also treated as an abject that is addressed to men. Nude is more than without clothes but related to sexuality that is not static but a process. Nude women in the painting尸 are thus mostly looking at the spectator, even for the nude women with her lovers. However, to illustrate an image that provokes the imagination of the sexual process requires painters' techniques. This kind of perception about women become a tradition in art.

Way of Seeing and Possessing

Paintings depict things that are buyable in reality. Buying a painting means also buying the things presented in the painting as paintings were purchased by rich people only in the past. This relation turns paintings (even artwork) into a commodity and reduced them into mere objects. Since painters are difficult to free paintings from their relation with possessing, average religious painting becomes hypocritical - the content of the painting is still a commodity/ pleasure/ object.

The paintings as a possessing promote a moral of wealth - virtue is rewarded by wealth. Thus, poor people appearing in paintings are usually in a pathetic and sad state.

Publicity Images

"Publicity images also belong to the moment in the sense that they must be continually renewed and made up-to-date. Yet they never speak of present. Often they refer to the past and always speak of future." [4]

Publicity images appear everywhere in our daily lives, promoting a better life via possessing more commodities or things by buying or consuming more in the future. In another sense, they imply one current situation is inadequate/poor/sad. These images use the language in oil painting to promote themselves. As mentioned before, oil painting implies a happy life with ownership of things. And this conception is embedded into oil paintings unconsciously. By manipulating images from oil paintings, publicity images forge a sense of unsatisfactory with current life and desire for possessing more. 

Part III - Paintings as Art in Modern Century

What art is
There were many philosophical discussions on the meaning of art, although they may not agree totally with each other, at least most concur that art has an intrinsic value, that is art is art per itself. Art serves no one and art exists for itself, even though it may possess instrumental values in some sense, these values are the side product of art rather than the purpose of its existence. Under Kant's critique of judgment, "reflective judgment is responsible for two specific kinds of judgments: aesthetic judgments, that is about the beautiful and the sublime, and teleological judgments. Aesthetic judgment, in Kant's book, is a judgment that is based on the feeling of disinterested pleasure or displeasure. There are three kinds of aesthetic judgment: judgments of the agreeable, judgments of beauty, and judgments of the sublime. However, Kant often uses the expression “aesthetic judgment” in a narrower sense which excludes judgments of the agreeable. Judgments of beauty have a “universal validity.” but cannot be proved and are not based not a concept.

When one views an artwork, the special experience is different from daily lives experience, which isolates/frees us from the world at that special moment.  Heidegger believes work is work because it sets up a world; it provides an open region for the formation of a world. The world is not the mere collection of things that are present but is a realm in which we believe that we are at home. The world is not objective to us and we are not the subject but the world transports us into beings. When decisions of our history are made, taken up, or abandoned, there will be the formation of a new world.

The aesthetic philosophies more or less are originated from the above two views. While my attempt in this article is not to argue what art is nor defend Kant/Heidegger's view, a brief knowledge of art helps explore the position of paintings as art in modern society.

Aesthetic Judgement
Kant'suniversality in aesthetic judgment implies there is an ideal form of artwork. However, the definite ideal form of artwork is not a prior. What Kant proposed was too idealogical to be proved. The ways of our interpretation of art are based on our personal and social value which means our understanding of a beautiful form of artwork is greatly affected by the social value of the society we have been staying in. Therefore, in a practical situation, the "universal" form proposed by Kant can exist, but only as different definite forms in different societies. What we believe is beautiful is shaped by the surrounding world, the aesthetic judgment on modern art (e.g.modern painting) is shaped by the history of art. Therefore, it helps explain why modern paintings that do not conform with past paintings are difficult for us to judge as beautiful. Furthermore, our aesthetic judgment is continuously being shaped by our surrounding environment, our social values, our political environment, which is an important point to be aware of when we look at paintings.

Experience of Paintings in Modern World
The experience provided from an artwork should free us from our daily world and this special experience provides some new insights to us in some senses. I believe one of the most adverse impacts of reproductive paintings, be it classical or modern, are they no longer demand our intense involvement. They appear but demand no attention from us and we treat them as one of the numerous pictures, such as advertisements, televisions, youtube, and magazines, appearing in our daily lives. Therefore, we are difficult to be separated from daily lives even though the paintings/pictures are beautiful. In fact, what draws us from attention may be pictures that arouse our strong feeling of fear or anger. Furthermore, even if we pay attention to the reproductive images of paintings, the images are too small for observing details. 

Another issue is that we, at least for common people who didn't received any training in artworks, have difficulties in relating the content of paintings to us, especially modern paintings. For classical paintings, the stories told by the paintings and the portraits in the paintings may be too far for us to relate, the content of modern paintings are usually abstract/surreal figures/shapes which are difficult for us relate to any real objects om the earth. Although we may exercise our imagination while looking at the paintings, not our every attempt will be successful. If we fail to relate the content of paintings with us, what is left in the paintings may be the lines, colors, textures and forms of the figures/shapes that we appreciate.

Figs.: A few examples of modern paintings
(From the left:  Antonio Carreno's "Allegorical", Benjamin Anderson's "Crown" & Max Ernst's "Brief an Peter Schamoni" )

Remark: I admit I did have a bit enjoyment while I were looking above paintings but I confess I cannot determine whether they are beautiful or not. 

Footnote
[1] Ways of Seeing, John Berger, Penguin, 1990 (Abrev.: WoS) P.11
[2] WoS P. 32
[3] Wos P.47
[4] WoS P. 130