THEORY AND READING RESEARCH
JOHN BERGER: WAYS OF SEEING (1972)
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| John Berger |
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| Ways of Seeing (1972) |
John Berger, 1926-2017, was an art critic, writer, and
artist, and had an enduring influence on the popular understanding of arts
and culture. His most famous work, the 1972 book Ways of Seeing, criticises
traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden
ideologies in visual images, particularly in the way women are portrayed and
perceived in historical and modern art forms. Originally a four-part BBC
Television series of the same name, the work showcases Berger’s approach to art
and highlights his view of social injustices perpetrated through art. It
questions how images inform and seep into everyday life and help constitute
its’ inequalities.
The book consisted of seven essays, of which four
consisted of words and images and three consisted of images alone.
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| Ways of Seeing (1976) p. 136-137 |
Ways of Seeing (1976) p. 136-137
These images show a variety of historical paintings that
depict a male domination and female subordinance, as well as themes of the male gaze through their compositions.
The male figures’ body language can be seen to portray superiority, strength
and predation, in juxtaposition to the females’ resemblance of sexualisation
through nudity and horizontal body positioning, obedience and entrapment.
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| Ways of Seeing (1976) p. 50-51 |
Ways of Seeing (1976) p. 50-51
Berger focuses on this unequal portrayal and perceptions
of genders in/of art. I want to highlight the passage in the middle of page 51,
commenting on the above painting VANITY
BY MEMLING (1435-1494):
‘You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put
a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had
depicted for your own pleasure’.
His direct criticism of the constructed depiction of a
woman by a man and consequent objectification and exclamation of her as a vain
object is a crucial perspective to understand, and indeed to be mindful of when
we are analysing any other historical or modern art or photography piece.
The issues surrounding depictions and connotations of a
woman’s body/body language are developed and furthered in today’s feminist
society, where nudist photography and other media are increasingly used as an
activist resistance against this very objectification.
I am interested in playing with the readings of gender in
photography, and how using male or female subjects in my photographs may in
itself alter the perception of the viewer and how they read the content/message
of the photograph.
From Berger we can learn that photographs ‘always need
language, and require a narrative of some sort, to make sense’ (Independent,
2017).
‘Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware of
the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible
sights… The photographer’s way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject’
– John Berger, Ways of Seeing, p. 10.
Here, emphasis is put on the importance of the
photographers choice of their own work in presenting to the viewer – it has
been carefully chosen from many, does this then mean that every connotation
behind the photograph is intentional and known by the photographer?
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Photograph by Sven Blomberg, Ways of Seeing, 1972, p. 129
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A woman “has to survey everything she is and
everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she
appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the
success of her life”. – John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Independent, 2017).
Berger highlights the constant underlying cognitive thought
process of women when she is being photographed or even in her every day life.
She is aware that her success may be measured on a male’s opinion of her
success.
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books. pp. 5-166.
Gunaratnam, Y. and Bell, V. (2017) How John Berger changed our ways of seeing art: He taught us that photographs always need language, and require a narrative, to make sense. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/john-berger-ways-of-seeing-a7518001.html (Accessed 24 May 2019).
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