#JOHN BERGER WAYS OF SEEING CAMERA SERIES#
But are the reproductions still as breathtaking as the originals? Simply watching pain. Penguin Classics 176 Pages Based on the BBC television series, John Berger’s Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin. Now instead of looking at original paintings, people just view reproductions and are satisfied that they have seen just the reproductions. What Berger is implying is that the camera has distorted art. The art comes to you, instead of you going to the art. Now you can view art in the luxury of your own home and you can sit in your living room and watch art on television. With the invention of the camera, reproductions of art are made freely and paintings “can be seen in a million different places at the same time”. The way our outlook on paintings and art changes depending on many things one of them being where and how we look and see a reproduction of a specific painting. More specifically, in the first episode, it focuses on paintings and how different one can interpret the specific painting based on many circumstances. 1 John Berger, Ways of Seeing INTRODUCTION Published in 1972 and based on a BBC television programme of the same name, this is a very influential text on art criticism. It focuses on how we view and interpret art. And the visual desirability of what can be bought lies in its tangibility, in how it will reward the touch, the hand, of the owner. Unfortunately I omitted to write a blog on the subject, being unaware at the time that one was needed. John Berger, quote from Ways of Seeing Thus painting itself had to be able to demonstrate the desirability of what money could buy. The original piece, because it is so widely known, loses some of that "mysteriousness" that Berger talked about- but the market value of the painting, because it is so popular, is extremely high.Ways of Seeing by John Berger was originally a television series on BBC that later was made into a book of the same name. Much earlier this term we saw a film on John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. In this case, the camera and remediation of the painting, made the painting extrememly popular, as well as the original. This painting has become so popular that people try to recreate it, add their own touches to it, and even do things like design clothes with the painting on it. It is debatably one of the world's most widely-known painting- even though only a select people have been to the museum in New York to see the original. This market value depends on it being genuine." (1) This shows that while the invention of the camera and the ability to copy anything took its toll on the value of a painting, something- money and market value of an original- somewhat replaced this.Īn example of a painting that the camera and the possibility of recreating and copying the image made very popular is Van Gogh's starry night. John Berger, noted art critic and author, expresses in his seminal work Ways of Seeing the idea that advertising is omnipresent. It's become mysterious again because of it's market value. Berger talks about the fact that in original paintings, this loss of worth is often replaced by market value for being an original paintings acquired a new kind of impressiveness, but not because of what it shows, not because of the meaning of its image. There is no longer the feeling of impressiveness because you know it's the only one of it's kind- yes, there is the original still which holds the value, but since most valued paintings have copies and remakes because of the camera, it loses some of it's sense of worth. Berger also touches on the fact that paintings can be easily manipulated- a few reasons why is that there is no unfolding of time in paintings, just the one frame a painting's interpretation can be changed if it is accompanied by music and rhythm and the meaning of an image can be changed depending on what you view after or beside it.īecause of the camera and the fact that any original piece of work can be photographed, copied, and placed virtually anywhere in the world, paintings have lost something. This messes with the "value" of the painting. He also talks a lot about how most original paintings have been recreated, copied, and distributed across the globe. The invention of the camera changed perception of the world- it changed not only what we see but how we see it. Berger touches on the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this makes the eye the center of the visible world. The videos "question the assumptions usually made about the tradition of European paintings" (1) The first episode in the series draws on Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and the idea that the reproduction of art such as paintings separates the piece's modern context from the context of which the piece was created. Ways of Seeing is a four part BBC video series, created by John Berger and producer Mike Dibb in 1972.