Analyzing The Essay 'Ways Of Seeing' By John Berger

When artists create a piece of work, they carefully analyze every aspect that they could possibly include and then carefully select which pieces they want to include in the final product. The amount of time and effort it takes to compose a piece they are satisfied cannot be overstated and it is the hope of these artists that their work is admired by others. When looking at art there can be some much going on that it seems overwhelming and each piece of art is subject to the perspective and values of each of the viewers. This is why art critics created three basic theories that can be used to effectively judge art. Each of these looks for specific aspects in a piece and uses that to determine the quality of work completed. Depending on the piece of work that is to be evaluated, one theory may be more fitting than the others to apply to the specific piece. Georgia O’Keefe’s painting Summer Days portrays a beautiful desert scene that has a very strong personal meaning for the painting, making using an expressive theory a successful method for analyzing how her own passions and views influenced the work. On the other hand, Jan van Eyck’s Madonna of Chancellor Rolin used groundbreaking oil techniques that defied the traditional works of his time, making a formal theory that focuses attention on the overall composition an ideal means to judge his piece.

The scenery seems to be exactly like that of a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. The art shows an extended family of parents, grandparents and children sitting around a table for a meal. An elderly woman in apron-which I assume is grandma-is placing a huge juicy looking turkey at the center of the table. There are also fruits and other small dishes on the table. Grandpa is on his feet at the end of the table staring at the juicy turkey. The family members are on either side of the table and speaking happily. There is also a gentleman whose gaze is directed at the viewer and the dining table also extends beyond the image. There are also two important texts in the image. On the top of the painting is the text “ours to fight for” and at the bottom is the title of the painting “Freedom from

In this paper I will be describe how I interpret never before seen art pictures. I will discuss how they make me feel, what I think of them, and what region of the brain makes me feel this way, and lastly how this process helped me. First I will pick an artist I have not viewed before, I’ll look at the picture for two minutes observing everything I can. Then I will discuss how I perceive the painting.

Baxandall argues that the ways in which people perceive images have differed throughout history, in accordance with the culture of a given place and time. He begins by explaining the idea that, whilst one’s optical perception of the world is unique to oneself, it is the interpretive skills or ‘cognitive style’ one possesses that results in a particular understanding of an image. Baxandall defines cognitive style as being comprised of: one’s ability to infer the meaning of an artwork’s formal properties, one’s knowledge of representational conventions, and one’s understanding of pictorial illusion. In discussing cognitive style in relation to a fifteenth-century viewer, Baxandall describes how the interpretation of imagery at this time was concerned

Heller begins her novel Why a Painting Is Like a Pizza by exploring the premise of defining art. Heller writes on the belief that "... anything anyone says is art should in fact be regarded as art(pg.10)." Arguably, she is employing the idea that the creator, as opposed to the beholder, determines what is considered art. This coincides with Pablo Picasso's 1923 Statement to Matius de Zayas in which he writes that the point of art is not to research but, rather find. He complains that many connect/associate "modern painting" with research as the means of creating a final piece of art. He emphasized his point by explaining that his objective when painting is strictly to show what he found within himself, express emotions "... without thinking of the past or of the future(Para.11)”. This correlates to points John Berger addresses in Chapter 7 of his book Ways Of Seeing. Berger discusses how publicity is used to evoke emotions of inadequacy and dissatisfaction of the audiences’ self image. He writes that publicity feeds off the “now” of the world and has a nearly constant presence in American

In his essay, “Modernist Painting” (1960), Clement Greenberg seeks to lay principles for evaluating the progression of art to modern painting. Greenberg makes a lot of evaluations and assessments about modern paintings that are credible and can be held to a high standard. Despite his best efforts, some of his assertions are shrouded in generalizations and lack the necessary premises to be established as entirely objective and affirmative. Greenberg claims that the Old Masters created space one could imagine walking into and experience, but modern painters, on the other hand, create space only accessible to the visual senses, eye. His observations regarding these “Old Masters” is undeniable for the most part, but his assertions on modern paintings brings up a lot of controversy.

While there were many poignant statements in “Ways of Seeing,” I was not a fan of this reading overall; it seemed to contradict itself time and again. Early on in the piece, Berger talks about art’s spiritual value determining its market value, in conjunction with the rarity of a work of art. Towards the end of the piece, after berating the reproduction of art for diminishing the value of a piece, he poses that the corkboards that many people have in their homes–– covered in replicated art and various slices of life–– should replace museums. I’m confused as to why Berger would present this idea after showing such disdain towards replication. It seems he has a very strict idea of what art is and what makes it meaningful, on page 21 of da Vinci’s “Virgin on the Rocks” he writes, “it is authentic and therefore it is beautiful,” an idea I find have difficulty to grasp. My

In this day and age, words like influence, perception, conformity, and power are just a few factors that correlate with most of the decisions we make. Influential aspects like the government, the media and modern society are actually a controlling factor that tend to hold this cloud of authority over our heads, which in turn shapes and molds our individualistic personalities. In Berger’s, “Ways of Seeing”, he claims that we are supposed to have this perception of power withheld in images, but as the images are constantly going through society’s cycles of reproduction and being influenced through a certain means, that power is being destroyed. In Foucault’s paper on the theory of “Panopticism”, he takes a stance that Panopticon is a way of describing

He reinstates how cultural differences have a deep influence on one’s perception of art. While most of the Western world delighted in linear perspective and the mathematical representation of the eye’s gaze, Eastern cultures celebrated a vision of the mind influenced both by physical sight and inner senses. The saying holds true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder—or in this case, perspective is in the eye of the beholder. When Western perspective spread to the East, it changed how both cultures viewed art. The Eastern world was taught the rules of perspective and in turn the West adapted certain artistic conventions of the East. Even during the Renaissance, book bindings featuring elaborate geometric patterning were inspired by Arabic designs. Thus, the story of the development of perspective results from and leads to both a clash of cultures and the exchange of cultural differences in the way that the world is

Art is delivered and delighted in by numerous individuals for some causes. Something that art does is stretch and build up our common aggregate photographic dialect. At the point when new visual thoughts are initially exhibited by the craftsman, they are regularly seen as stunning, and maybe even as unimaginable.

In the painting you see a young lady looking behind her as if she was startled by something or someone. The young man appears to be looking in the same direction as if he is scared of whatever is there. The two seem to be sneaking around and meeting each other in secrecy and must have been caught by and elder. The painting has many different colors and reflect great detail with the sculpture, clouds, trees, pots and flowers. Looks like a beautiful place for two lovers to meet and enjoy one another’s

In the essay "Way of Seeing" which was written by John Berger and published in Reading for Writers in 2013, In the Article he tried to put his point across from his experience as a teacher through this point of views; Art is a subject according to the privilege, effect on the production of art and the monetary value of art and the connection with the privilege to illustrate how art has been confused and devalued.

One of the evident shown in this painting are the people in front of the yellow table serving.

When viewing Monet’s painting, the viewer is somewhat forced to partake in the conception of the meaning behind the subject matter and allows the viewer to complete the work of art to their liking. With unblended pigments and uneven strokes, the paint was applied to allow the viewer to imaginatively mix on the surface of the painting; as the light only appears to be selective upon the surface, making it so that the painting seems unfinished (Wildenstein).

The way in which one views the world and forms an opinion about it is entirely based on what they have experience throughout their lives. This idea was presented in a very long winded essay by John Berger. While keeping this idea in the back of my mind I analyze image D form the Orphan Black Stills that we were provided without any prior knowledge of what story this TV show was supposed to tell. After viewing the episode in which the still I had chosen to decipher my views on what occurred changed a surprising amount simply from the context now provided. With context to frame the still it shows how even a seemingly innocent image can be very different than how it is first presented; even when viewed in hundreds of different locations simultaneously. This potentially challenges John Berger belief that the way one sees something is based primarily on a set context highlighted by one’s life experiences; but instead one’s life experiences highlight what they see with the context helps them form their interpretation.