John Berger

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John Berger

• Ways of Seeing
• 1972

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Printing from studioit

• http//www.studioit.org.uk

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Printing lecture overheads

• Find lecture on studioit, under Stage 1
• Right Click PPT. Do NOT choose Print Target
• Choose Save target as
• Save Powerpoint to your files or to the Desktop
• Once file is saved, choose Open
• The file is now open in Powerpoint
• Find Print what Choose Handouts
• Find Color/grayscale Choose Black and White
• Find Slides per page Choose number. Click OK

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Academic Reserve

• 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

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The relation between what we see and what we
know is never settledJohn Berger. Ways of
Seeing. 1972
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John Berger. 1926 -

• Ways of Seeing. 1972.
• BBC television series. 4 Programmes.
• Critical response to Kenneth Clarks television
  series Civilisation. 1969.
• Book published in same year 1972. 4 essays / 3
  visual essays.
• Reading final and 7th essay.

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John Berger reading

• Berger, J. Ways of Seeing. London British
  Broadcasting Corporation and Penquin Books
  Limited 1972, pp132-35.

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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

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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.)

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Bergers 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

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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.

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The crisis of art historyaesthetes 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)
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Thomas Gainsborough. Mr and Mrs Andrews. c1750
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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.

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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

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(No Transcript)
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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.

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Does the language of publicity have anything in
common with that of oil painting? John Berger.
Ways of Seeing. P134.
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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
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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 actionJ Berger. 1966
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http//www.robertsmithson.com/essays/sanford.htm
Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty. 1970. Utah. U.S.A.
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Theodore Adorno. 1903-69.The culture industry
created false needs to passify the consumer

• Vance Packard.
• The Hidden Persuaders. 1957

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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 carsV
Packard. 1957
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Ways of Seeing

• 4. The Language of Advertising