Almost half a century ago, John Berger expounded how authority has became the barrier of vision through analyzing the impact of ways of seeing on art. Nowadays, people seem to have no need to worry about this problem because of the development of technology. We have the most advanced and sophisticated machines which can help us to “see” the nature of object. For example, a microscope can amplify the object thousands of times and a telescope can look across the milky way through the distant galaxy. The advanced technology allows people to enjoy famous paintings in the world even if they never leave home, and people no longer need to care some disease because we have such developed medical system. Therefore, a large number of people believe that science is omnipotent. But is that the real truth? From my point of view, contemporary science has became a kind of superstition since it plays such a important role in our daily life, and it has became the barrier of vision which blinds people’s eyes as people rely on technology for everything they do. An important part of science is creativity, Edward de Bono once said, “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same pattern.” It is those invention which led us farewell to poverty and backwardness. Among those great inventions, I believe camera is the most charming one. Berger mentioned the impact of camera on painting. As the camera appeared on the stage of history, people’s ways of seeing have been changed, especially for artists. “For the impressionists the visible no longer presented itself to man in order to be seen. On the contrary, the visible, in continual flux, became fugitive. For the Cubists the visible was no longer what confronted the single eye, but the totality of possible views taken from points all round the object being depicted.” The visible came to mean something. What Berger believed is cameras verify that there is no centre of vision in this world and become the third perspective besides the vision of god and human being. Therefore, it enables people to have broader horizons. Even so, the most profound impact caused by the invention of camera which is replication had emerged and unpredictably became a kind of barrier to vision. According to what Berger said “The uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image show that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.” The original products will only stand out by its uniqueness rather than its particular connotation to people. As the copies of original product are created in hundreds and thousands, the original products will not stand out by its uniqueness but loses its particular connotation which is the most charming part to people. And then a process of mystification again entered. The original paintings no longer only means what it means but serves the authority which creates a sense of distant between the audience and the paintings. Therefore, having sympathy with the artist through looking their works is more difficult to normal people, but what is ironical that it is easier for normal people to have sympathy with authority. Due to this kind of mystification, people cannot really see the nature of the object, but assume that these paintings are engaging and gorgeous. And people began to believe what authority want them to believe. Likely, the progress reproduction feature of camera is the same as how different kinds of invention spread to every corner of the world. Camera can also serve as an example to illustrate how scientific invention become the barrier of vision with one of its the most fascinating feature, that is, it can catch the moment of people’s daily life. Therefore people believe that what they saw through the photographs is the fact while it is ironical that the technology, what we always believed, can deceive us with more advanced technology.

This contradiction can be illustrated through a psychological term called misinformation effect which refers to people’s tendency to include the misinformation as part of their recall of the original experience. If a faked photo created from real life snapshot, many people will be led to a vivid, detailed recollection. Then, though we thought we saw the truth through the faked photo, but we did not actually. Indeed, with slight variations of the photos, people have been led to recall entire events that never occurred. Science is so integrated into our lives that we never aware that sometimes we have been blinded by it. Similarly, if we change our point of view and start to look at the photograph itself. We can find that even we can see the original photo without any variation, we can also be blinded sometimes. According to “VENUS AND MARS”, the example that Berger stated in his article, “Reproduction isolates a detail of a painting from the whole. The detail is transformed. An allegorical figure becomes a portrait of a girl.” We can see that what we saw is just the authority want us to see, therefore the conclusions that we made according to the convention of what we saw are not objective. So the public opinion are guided, and what we believe can just be the hidden shadow behind the truth created by the ruling class. It is easy to become the slave of ruling class when we are blinded by the barrier of vision. From the comments state by Berger to the example which illustrated mystification of the painting “REGENTS OF THE OLD MEN” created by Hals, “What is this ‘seduction’ he writs of? It is nothing less than the paintings working upon us. They work upon us be cause we accept the way Hals saw his sitters”, we can conclude that the facts we have seen and believed is not objective, in fact, because the governor makes us to accept their values and their perspectives, so that we can easily have sympathy with the governor and we always thought we have seen the nature of object and consider ourselves as objective people. In the field of science, the most apparent instance that can illustrate that phenomenon is our medical system which serves as the guard of human health. And it can also become the barriers of vision since we never comprehend the nature of the chemical. Heroin, a horrible drug, created by a German medicine company and once used as analgesic. The president of company proudly claimed “Heroin is a omnipotent medicine.” And most doctors praised heroin as a kind of drug with high quality and safety. They also said heroin has a magical efficacy to cough, pain even the cancer. Later, People quickly discovered that heroin is valid for all diseases and firmly believed it. At that time, because it is only not applicable to a small range of disease, heroin became the blockbuster dugs around the world soon. All the people include infants, adult and elder consume heroin, and heroin has gradually become a kind of fashion. However, people did not realize that this kind of magic pill is just the tool for somebody to make money. Quickly, as experiments prove that heroin may translate into morphine in the liver, the myth of heroin was shattered. In fact, heroin is just the disguise, the true barrier of vision is upper class people’s greed. People with authority can obtain the information that we cannot see. Thus, science becomes those people’s tools which blocked people’s sight to see the true fact behind spurious appearance, and it becomes the shrouded fog surrounding the facts at that time. Copycat can not really have the judging abilities only after they abandoned blind act.

In conclusion, barriers of vision not only occur in the field of art and science but everywhere. I believe Berger wanted us to extent the meaning of barriers and let people realize the importance of facts. When we go to see a thing, we have to see the nature of it rather than make observation combined with our own fantasy or somebody else’s point of views on it, so that people can make right decisions without disturbing. And I believe that is what Berger want us to learn from his article.