...Ways of Seeing by John Berger On Tuesday, June 5th 2012, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts. The atmosphere was peaceful and quiet even though there were a lot of students from a high school. If you decide to go to a museum you have a special attitude. First of all it is your choice to go there. The museum will not come to you. I spent quite some time walking around to find a picture that was “speaking” to me. Then I came across the “Behind the Scenes: Caring for working of art” room. It is an electrical room with a touch screen under the picture. The screen explains a lot of the different things about the history and background of the painting (picture 1). The painting was of Mrs. Timothy Rogers (Lucy Boylston). I was intrigued by the historical background of the Boylston Family and the timeline (1766 – 1767) during which John Singleton Copley painted six portraits of the Boylston family. It reminded me of a line in John Berger’s essay: “They are declared art when their line of descent can be certified” (150). I wonder how many wonderful and beautiful paintings were just thrown away because they were not of someone important, rich, or famous. There was also information about the cleaning of the painting. I was able to see the difference in the 1921 unclean portrait and the 1950 clean portrait. First, I just saw a nice painting of a woman, but now I can see and appreciate the portrait of Mrs. Timothy Rogers. “The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees...
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...Alexander Irinarchos ENGL 1102 – College Writing Professor Amy Carleton Reflections about John Berger’s Essay Ways of Seeing I found “ways of seeing” by John Berger, very interesting although only when its applications were focused on general seeing and perception of seeing. The mere part of the essay which focuses on art through history and perception, was of less interest to me, perhaps because it reminded me of a philosophical IB class I had of which similar aspects were analyzed, or simply because I had a hard time grasping all language in the later part of “ways of seeing”. However I due believe John Berger’s main subject that of how we perceive and how we see, is a very intriguing one. The idea of “selective perception” though not mentioned, yet a key underlying theme of the essay, is something I see implication of in my daily life. I recall telling my girlfriend two days ago, about how fascinating it is that often when you learn something new one day, it does always go more than half a day before you strike that exact new knowledge again, though having never seen it before or perhaps more correctly having never perceived and recorded it before! My example the other day was how a realtor who had a Greek last name, told me in a text message that he doesn’t speak Greek but might take Rosetta Stone. I was extremely confused yet did not bother to look the word up, which would have been unnecessary because during my Business Textbook reading later that night...
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...photography duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Julianne Moore is a 49-year-old Hollywood celebrity with Oscar nominations in her credits. She is chosen to represent the style and personality of a Bvlgari woman, a choice inspired by her timeless charisma, which transcends the trends and myths of the moment to earn her a place not only in the history of cinema but also of feminine elegance (Benzinga, 2009). “We like strong, confident women, we like sexuality in a very sensual way—not at all vulgar. We hate vulgar.” Marcus Alas said in a 2004 interview (adweek.com, 2004). Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott are partners in the professional world of fashion photography and have made their significant mark through highly retouched, luminous and strong composition photography styles. “Publicity starts by working on the natural appetite for pleasure, something that is real. It does not, however, offer the pleasure as it is. Rather it promises happiness, happiness gained by being envied by others, and this is glamour” (Berger,...
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...means of the changes and the subsequent consequences for the individuals and society. These classics generated the basis for the typical sociological type of thinking; seeing the connections between major changes in society and the individual acts and living conditions. In short term - sociology is both the study of individuals and the society as a whole. As a newcomer to the special field of sociology, I find the term of sociological imagination as the most applicable and understandable term to understand the complex and broad field of sociology. Thereby i state my thesis: Is social imagination the best and simplest way to understand the field of sociology? Sociological imagination was coined by C. Wright Mills (1959) as the process of linking individual biographies to the larger social contexts. By this perspective one can say that the sociological imagination can help explain humans and society by seeing "the human in society and the society within humans". According to Peter Berger this connection can be portrayed by thinking that: "Every individual biography is an episode within the history of society" (Berger 1967; 3). "Society is a dialectic phenomenon in that it is a human product, and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts back upon its producer" (Berger 1967; 3). By this Berger puts in words the common sociological notion that society is human made (as for the term itself), and how all humans are a part of their own...
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...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...
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...learned ways to visually analyze different mediums. We learned about John Berger who introduced people seeing things in a new way. This is paralleled with the way the Holocaust has been portrayed in different mediums. He also introduced the idea of “seeing” depends on a person’s habit and their environment. I will be comparing elements in the mediums of Reflections and Echoes, Maus, Life is Beautiful, and Inglorious Bastards as well as the methods in the perceptions of the author and the lenses through which they see, and then go into detail about the readers perceptions. Introduction The medium through which an artist chooses to express their message or ideas has an effect on the way it is perceived by the viewer. Imagery has deeper meaning that artists tend to hide their message through the use of several representations. The type of image that an author decides to use has an ultimate effect on the perception of the audience. Members of the audience decode varied meanings from an image in the text. The World War II is among issues that have been represented in texts and movies through the use of imagery. It is upon the audience to have extra skills so that they decipher the intended meaning of the author. In this analysis, the focus will be on how different texts and films have portrayed World War II. However, the guiding argument for his paper is that not everyone interprets images in a movie or text from the perspective of the author or the producer. John Berger...
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...If we take into account the ideological nature of Art, we would observe how images serve the interest of some and not all members of society. We would also discover that ideological art attempts to establish a link between art and political courses of action in order to secure complete domination. In John Bergers book, “Ways of Seeing”, he explains that his essential aim for putting together this manuscript was to start a process of questioning about how we look, interpret and judge images (Art). I believe his urge to initiate this process of questioning is because he wants people to being, “truly understanding art”, not based off of the interpretation of a select few but from their own personal prospective. In other words, Berger does not want us to be told what to see within a work of art, but he wants us to discover ourselves within that masterpiece. In a way, Berger gives us the definition of beauty in art. Not by standard definition but by exposing us to the fact that beauty is not defined by what we are told but it is defined by what we perceive. As Berger continued, I deduced that he believes, the ruling class deliberately exploits art as a repressive tactic and tool, in order to create a culture of isolation. He also introduces statistical data proving that many people identify museums with the church. So here we have a house of worship and a secular institution dedicated to art. A house of worship is a specifically designed edifice or consecrated space where groups...
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...The Cleveland Art Museum and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame offer two very different experiences to the museum goer. Though they are both types of museums, they have completely different atmospheres and content. My experience cannot offer a true critique to anyone else who might be considering going, because I will have had an infinitely different experience than what anyone else will have. An art critic named John Berger once said, “Every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing,” and this is why a critique holds next to no real value from one person to the next. I can share my experience and opinions, but they will be different from anyone else’s, though they will influence...
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...through changes in our own ways of thinking, and as such continues to vary a great deal. In Annie Leonard’s video, “The Story of Stuff,” we get to break down one of the aspects of this dilemma. Leonard analyzes the true costs of various goods, beyond the sticker price that we pay as consumers. She brings up the fact that people in other countries are having to pay “with the loss of their...
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...Firstly we have to identify what popular culture means in order to understand the concept of what John Fiske is talking about in his quote. ‘Culture’ is a social circulation meaning of norms and values that help contribute towards our social identities. There are a wide range of things we can consider to be culture, in fact there isn’t a lot of things in our daily lives that isn’t considered culture from reading books, playing football or even having a dinner with your family. However, ‘popular’ is a more ambiguous definition in comparison to ‘culture’. The average person may consider popular to mean what appeals to most people for example football is considered to be popular amongst males which makes it appealing. On the other hand, John Fiske states that ‘the popular’ serves ‘the interest of the people’. Looking at John Fisk’s book of ‘Understanding Popular Culture’ he also states that popular culture is the ‘art of making do’ (Fiske, 1990, p.28). What he means is that there has to be an ‘interest’ to people in order for commodities exist. Hence the reason why culture is a issue, this is because we all consume in different ways. The method of consumption relies on how we interpret products and its meaning to us, Fiske states in his book “The people make popular culture at the interface between everyday life and the consumption of the products of the cultural industries” Fiske argues that in order for commodities to exist they have to be relevant in our everyday lives. Finally...
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...suggestion, and the infinite possibilities of imagining the world and ourselves in different time and space. This concept of “open work” (1980, p.45) as observed by Umberto Eco is central in my proposal of study and it aims to investigate the state of immersion in fictive discourse with others, the world and ourselves. The proposal examines how an installation piece dealing with text, time and space when presented as an “open work”, is able to engage the audience’s fictive discourse, and intensify, in particularly this notion of immersion and presence. One of the key exploration at this stage includes Tan 2 the study of how words are liberated from a two-dimensional on a page to a three dimensional spatial arrangement. In this way, once the words are freed from their linear syntactical order, we begin to move away from discursive cognitive reading of a text; away from “clear, rational and concrete meanings” to “states of mind and poetic moods” as...
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...The theories learned from communications classes can be applied in everyday life. They can especially be applied to films. Films are the outlets of human communication –mimicking life. The film that we will be examining and applying theories to is Spanglish. The film was written and directed by James L. Brooks and was released in December, 2004. The tagline “a comedy with a language all its own,” (IMDb) truly describes the motion picture. Spanglish is about a mother (Flor Moreno) and her daughter (Cristina Moreno) who are forced to leave Mexico for Flor to find work in America. Flor starts working for the Clasky’s whose home in Las Angeles leads Flor into a different culture. John Clasky, the head of the household is a down to earth master chief who has trouble dealing with his neurotic wife, Deborah. As the two cultures collide it makes for laughs and above all, testable space for communication theory. According to Julia T. Wood (2004) in the book, Communication Theories in Action, speech community theory “focuses specifically on how different social groups teach members distinct styles of communicating and interpreting the communication of others.” (p. 220) As indicated by Jennifer Kramer (2007), speech community theory is categorized under the socio-cultural tradition (Kramer, 2007b). An example of this theory in the movie, Spanglish, was how the main character, Flor, and the Clasky family came to represent, what Wood (2004) called, separate “speech communities”...
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...Questioning a Ghost Questioning a Ghost Questioning a Ghost An attractive Spanish woman stares at me, her eyes never moving. The pose is frozen endlessly in time. She’s wearing a flowing silk gown and an expensive looking shall which one could imagine is made from gold flake. The bed she lies on has oversized pillows with frilly trim. Her shoes are gold and she appears to have some make-up on. The woman’s hair is dark as night, her eyebrows are long and pronounced and she has rosy cheeks. There seems to be an essence of wealth or, at the very least, the artist was trying to portray her as sophisticated and high class. Around her waist I see a red sash presumably also made of silk. One can imagine it is a ribbon around the gift that is the woman. Maja has a very seductive figure. The hourglass contours of her body, slender waist, and ample breasts rising as if she was inhaling deeply at the moment Goya started the outline. You can see there is strength in her legs and I would describe her as having “child-bearing hips”. Maja surely is a beautiful woman. But, is she a real woman? Was Francisco Goya painting the love of his life? The detail in the face suggests to me that Goya knew Maja well. Maja may be the mother of his children, yet she is still looks youthful and beautiful. If she isn’t his significant other than who is she? Perhaps she is just another paying customer. Francisco, the starving artist, could have been painting her at the commission of her wealthy family...
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...University of Phoenix Future of Modernization Modernization in the United States has four traits which were identified by Peter Berger in 1977. The first trait was the decline of small, isolated communities. Approximately one hundred years ago there were 40% of Americans living in cities. Today, 80% of the population lives in cities. The next trait is the expansion of personal choice. Most people choose their lifestyles instead of allowing others to make that decision for them. The next trait is the rising amount of diversity in the United States. Interracial couples are more accepted now then it was even 20 years ago. The fourth trait is the orientation toward the future and a growing awareness of time. Now people are planning for their future instead of reminiscing on the past. Karl Marx, A revolutionary socialist believes these traits are necessary for capitalism to flourish. “According to Marx, capitalism draws population away from farms and small towns into an ever-expanding market system centered in the cities” (Society: The Basics, Eleventh Edition, by John J. Macionis, Ch 16, pg 489). Many believed Marx’s views on modern capitalist society were negative, but he was positive on creativity, human freedom, and community. I believe modernization will continue in the United States, as our country is always looking for ways to develop new technology to make things in life quicker and more convenient. Fifteen years ago, laptop computers were becoming popular and...
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...following definition of critical thinking: “Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, and empathically. They are keenly aware of inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and socio- centric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers- concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, access, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason.” Critical thinking is taking a thought thinking about it, analyzing it, and then elaborating on it with facts and evidence. Based on Linda Elder’s argument critical thinkers use intellectual tools to improve their thinking through numerous skills. The numerous skills used such as intellectual empathy and rationale allow for critical thinkers to reason at a high level of quality. With Linda Elder’s definition in mind the following texts offer evidence to support her definition. In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing he offers the problem of people being subjective. In David Foster Wallace’s essay “Deciderization 2007-A Special Report” he shows a solution or choice to the problem. In Leon Weiseltier’s...
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