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Ways of Seeing

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 28,687 ratings · 343 reviews

John Berger’s Classic Text on Art

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he wil...more

Paperback, 176 pages

Published December 1st 1990 by Penguin Books (first published 1972)

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Jun 27, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007-reads, art-theory, art-history

2007 wrote: This book, based on a television series, explores how the art world of now has come to be by exploring what art was to humans in the past. The theories presented are very interesting and are posed with pictorial references that do very well to prove points. One interesting chapter deals exclusively with the 'Nude' in art overtime. Overtime it has been reviled, reveared, copied, censored, hidden, hoarded and abstracted. Another great chapter deals in the context in which people see ar...more

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Mar 08, 2012 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is very short and does not really say much of anything that will give you a heightened appreciation of art. What it will do is show you how the history of art is entwined with Capitalism. Berger offers an overtly Marxist critique of the tradition of oil painting and, subsequently, it's relation to modern publicity and advertising. I know quite a bit about Marxist theory, so bits of this were a little old hat. If you don't know a lot about Marxist theory (or Benjamin, for that matter) t...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 02, 2013 Ahmad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: art, non-fiction, history

Way of Seeing
جان برگر در «راه‌های دیدن» می‌گوید: «مردان به زنان می‌نگرند و زنان به خود نگاه می‌کنند که مورد تماشا قرار گرفته‌اند. این روزها، دیگر برای دوربین‌ها آسان نیست که زنان را فقط به صورت ابزاری جنسی به نمایش بگذارند زیرا زنان کارگردان و بازیگر، از نقش‌های خود برای عرضه‌ی هوش و قدرت آرمانی‌شان بهره می‌گیرند. زنان آمریکایی تلاش فراوانی کرده‌اند تا دنیایی از آن خود بسازند، دنیایی که در آن اصل نگاه مردانه نمی‌تواند از وجود آنها، هویت جنسی‌شان را به نمایش بگذارد بلکه مجبور خواهد بود آنها را زن...more

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May 25, 2008 Pierce rated it 4 of 5 stars

First of all, this entire book is set in bold. I don't know what crazy crazyman let that through the gate at Penguin but I just felt I had to point it out right away. It's still worth reading.

4 essays and 3 pictorial essays. Really interesting stuff cutting away some of the bullshit associated with our appreciation of art. It seems like museums are doing a lot of things wrong as well as right.

Chapter on oil-painting was particularly interesting but it was the last one about advertising (or "publ...more

14 likes · like · see review

May 16, 2013 spoko rated it 3 of 5 stars

By and large, I'm not a fan of manifestos. This one was no exception. It had a lot of insight, as manifestos often do, and I learned a lot from it, which is also not atypical. But to my mind, there's something insulting about a manifesto. To borrow a metaphor from Eudora Welty, writing like this is the equivalent of serving me my brain food already cut up for me. The ideas may be deeper than a trashy romance novel (for example), but the level of respect for the audience is roughly the same. And...more By and large, I'm not a fan of manifestos. This one was no exception. It had a lot of insight, as manifestos often do, and I learned a lot from it, which is also not atypical. But to my mind, there's something insulting about a manifesto. To borrow a metaphor from Eudora Welty, writing like this is the equivalent of serving me my brain food already cut up for me. The ideas may be deeper than a trashy romance novel (for example), but the level of respect for the audience is roughly the same. And I always tend, right or wrong, to begin judging the ideology in question through the lens of that disrespect. If they have this much distrust for people in general, then how can their ideas about life not be tainted with that fundamental distrust? Since I do not share that distrust, how much am I really going to accept the ideas they've built on it?

All of that is the case, as I said, with manifestos in general. So what about this particular one? Ways of Seeing, the book, is apparently based on a BBC series of the same name and with the same purpose. Their purpose is to get us to look at art in a different way (namely, and being a leftist myself I don't throw this term around lightly: in a Marxist way). They begin with a very simplistic explanation of the importance of sight (based, apparently, on the fact that we are able to see before we are able to do just about anything else—never mind that we actually start using all four of our other senses before we even open our eyes), and then go on to the importance of visual art: painting, photography, that kind of thing. Then they leap straight into the Marxism and attempt to show the ways in which art, especially painting, has always been used to promote capitalism (even, it seems, before there was capitalism) and to celebrate the virtue of the propertied class. Some of which is interesting, actually, but some of which is stretching quite a bit. In true manifesto fashion, they make sure to consistently point out the ways in which seeming exceptions actually prove the rule. Also in true manifesto fashion, they are careful to pick the most egregious examples they can find in order to make their points without looking like they picked the most egregious examples available.

I have to include one quote, because I think it's so emblematic.

We [the authors of the series/book] are accused of being obsessed by property. The truth is the other way round. It is the society and culture in question which is so obsessed. Yet to an obsessive his obsession always seems to be of the nature of things and so is not recognized for what it is.

Or, to put it another way: "We're rubber, you're glue. Bounces off us and sticks to you." They're right about the nature of obsession, I'm sure, but that isn't much of a defence since their own argument could be described with that sentence.

Here's the thing, though. There's a lot of value in the book. I actually do have a new way of seeing art now, and I think it's a better informed way. I also have a more complex understanding of some other issues, ranging from the nature of masculinity to the nature of history to the nature of envy and beyond. All of which is good, and all of which is despite the fact that this isn't my first exposure to many of these ideas. I got this book on a recommendation from a prof in grad school, and in his class and others I did think about & discuss many of these ideas. But the value of a manifesto, I suppose, is that (since they almost completely disregard opposing viewpoints) they can really succinctly get deep into the ideas at hand. So there is a lot to be gained from a book like this. Even if I didn't particularly enjoy reading it.

P.S. I must say something about the design of this book. It's horrible. Really, absolutely terrible. Take a closer look at that cover image (click on it and look at the large version). The text on there is actually the beginning of the book. It's repeated again inside, but I guess they thought they'd look more serious and utilitarian if they just started right in with the cover? This book also suffers from the same ridiculous modernist notion (later completely disavowed by Jan Tschichold, who started it) that sans-serif fonts are better than serif fonts because they are free of the "adornment" of serifs. They take it one step further here, and use a bold sans-serif throughout the book. Which is just dumb. Many of their other design choices (full one-inch paragraph indentations, for example) are equally dumb, and the book looks like it was thrown together in half an hour by a high-school journalism class. Really, it's just atrocious.

P.P.S. The book ends, and I'm not kidding, with a page that has one line on it: "To be continued by the reader . . ." The absolute pretension at work here was almost more than I had the stomach for.(less)

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May 09, 2012 Manchespoetra marked it as to-read

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 04, 2011 Cheryl in CC NV rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My personal rating. I'm not a scholar, but I've informally paid attention to art (in museums, introductory classes at college, etc.) for decades. I get the idea the Berger wants people like me to feel more comfortable with art, as he rejects so many samples of highbrow analyses. But he didn't quite reach far enough out to me. Maybe seeing the tv series upon which the book is based would help.

I will say I was impressed with some of the insights of the first essay. That one relates directly to al...more

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 06, 2010 Holly Mcintyre rated it 4 of 5 stars

I finally pulled this "oldie but goodie" off my shelf and read it. I wish I had years ago.

Although the examples from its 1970s origin are dated, its thesis is perhaps even more valid today than then: Oil painting emerged just as the Western world entered the era of capitalism and imperialism. The technique of perspective makes the viewer the center of all he (yes, Virginia, "he") sees, just as "Western man" viewed the resources of the world. Oil paintings, therefore, became a vehicle by which We...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Deborah Palmer rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book though initially written in 1972 is still relevant to the reader today especially the essays dealing with the way women are seen in society. It is composed of seven essys, four use words and images, three only images. It discusses how women are view in society with an emphasis and concentration on European or Western culture. The images are from ads and famous European paintings. Being that I work in a museum and see paintings all day long this aspect interests me in particular.

Basical...more

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Dec 24, 2012 Malcolm rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cultural-politics

The 1970s and 1980s saw significant shifts in the ways we thought about art history, alongside its attempts to engage popular audiences. There were BBC TV shows in the 1970s that took art history outside the academy – for the traditionalist view there was Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and others which espoused a conventional academic art historical view. Whereas Clark’s Civilisation is seen as one of those shows that had lasting power and gravitas (which it did) the show that had the impact was J...more The 1970s and 1980s saw significant shifts in the ways we thought about art history, alongside its attempts to engage popular audiences. There were BBC TV shows in the 1970s that took art history outside the academy – for the traditionalist view there was Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and others which espoused a conventional academic art historical view. Whereas Clark’s Civilisation is seen as one of those shows that had lasting power and gravitas (which it did) the show that had the impact was John Berger’s Ways of Seeing in 1972. This is the book of that show.

Unlike most books of art history, this is not a large format, lavishly illustrated in colour, glossy papered text, but a small paperback (glossy paper but with small black and white illustrations) and written in an accessible, engaging, pedagogic and didactic style that demands we think, rise to the challenge and answer the questions put to us. In this sense, Berger was part of the change in art history that saw the emergence of scholars such as Janet Wolff, Marcia Pointon, Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster and others who demanded that we understand art and art history as a social product, as a system of power and ideology with the result that pictures were not just pictures but social, cultural and political texts.

In his version of this approach, Berger argues that the emergence of the canon of art as we know it and see it in the oil painting is linked to the emergence of capitalism and its peculiar deployment of power. He (and his unnamed co-authors – in the preface he says there are five authors) does this through seven essays, four written and three visual, exploring perspective and power (western art’s deployment of perspective places the viewer at the centre of the picture and valorises them, the nude, oil painting and advertising (which he calls publicity) while the visual essays argue for recognition of the place of high art in the popular present, for an understanding of power and dominance in the canon and claims to possession.

When this book was published in 1972 this was a radical new way to think about old pictures on stuffy museum walls, and when I first read it in the early 1980s it remained provocative and challenging. It was with a sense of intrigue then that I came back to it 40 years after publication to consider whether it would be something I should set my students to read in an attempt to get them thinking differently about advertising. Although many of the ideas have become more mainstream, and although some of the writing has dated (for instance, it is gendered in ways we’d challenge now) the case retains its power and its pedagogic potential. It is humbling to find such a popularly accessible book that is both 40 years old and as powerful and important at is was when it first appeared. On its own terms it works, and we should not under-estimate its impact – but it will be intriguing to see what my students make of it.

I am delighted to have revisited it.(less)

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Nov 11, 2010 Jodi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent book. Especially enjoyed the last chapter on advertising--Berger tells us (in 1972) that material consumption has been turned into a "subsstitute for democracy." He declared that the "choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice"...it "helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic with society."

Enjoyed how Berger gives it to us by summarizing the idea of advertising to the fact that we are made to feel unsatisfied with our own...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Kislay Verma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excerpts from my full review at Solomon Says"

"Ways of seeing" consists of 7 essays, four of which use words and the other 3 are pictorial. This review is only for the worded essays. The four essays under consideration deal with the ideological perspective of art, and how the prevalent art forms of any era serve the ideological interests of the people in power. Despite the claims to nobility and notable exceptions to this trend, art reflects the self-image or aspirations of the ruling class and a...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Trevor by: Lindig Harris

Shelves: art

This book is based on a television series which can be viewed on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfB-p...

This is a really remarkable series and a remarkable, although annoying, book. The book is annoying because it should have been a coffee table book with large colour photographs and large font – instead it is a Penguin paperback with a font tending towards the unreadable and grey scale reproductions of the paintings that make them almost impossible to view. This is agonising, as...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Jule rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book in an AMTRAK train from the Bay Area to Portland. It was eye-opening :). Some of the essays are pictures only, pictures of paintings. The book is a little older, to me it portrays the spirit of its time, I enjoyed quite a few surprising moments. It definitely brightened my train ride through the night. All this Marxist vocab...

As the title suggests, "Ways of Seeing" is about the ways we see. How our mind is formed through society and how this conditioning impacts on our percepti...more

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Dec 12, 2011 Shinn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, art, non-fiction, society

Once you get past the squat bold typeface and the dated black and white photos, this book actually throws up some interesting questions.

I liked the first essay, which talks of the "mystification" of art, something I agree with myself. The other essays, in images as well as in words, deal with subjects as different as gender roles in Western art, oil painting as a distinct visual language and advertising. Yet, the essays often link together and I especially liked the parallels drawn between oil p...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Megankellie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: educationalnerdoutmaterial, holier-than-thou, cantdoitcantfinish

On the top floor in the Strand Bookstore in New York, I saw a self-consciously bored worker show a struggling-to-be-bored kid with his mom to the art table. The worker was like "well, you need this, and this, and this" and I realized the kid must be in art school and the worker must have graduated pretty recently. The worker was like "have you read Ways of Seeing? By John Berger?" and wanted to have geeky enthusiasm, but kept her eyes half closed and only lifted the book two inches. The kid was...more

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Oct 22, 2010 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: male, united-kingdom, poetic-essay, year-1970s

A book about basic visual literacy, with 7 essays, 3 of them containing only images. It's not that he's original... he borrows a lot ideas from Walter Benjamin and Claude Levi-Strauss, but that he explains it in clear, easy language, with examples.

The chapter about oil painting was especially illuminating for me, as I had never understood how to tell a "great" oil painting from a mediocre one, having no context in which to see them. But Berger here really dissects the historical origins of the f...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Greta rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: art

This was an incredible little book about looking at art. John Berger discusses the origins of and meaning behind oil painting and how photography changed our relationship to it, but also gave us another way of looking at things. I particularly liked the chapter discussing "publicity" (advertising) and how he so coherently explains how capitalism and its ensuing consumption is turned by advertising into a substitute for democracy. We perceive choice as freedom and the freedom to choose what to "c...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Faryal rated it 3 of 5 stars

Read this for my Composition class. Its a great read when first read since his main ideas stand out, have clarity, and are verified (to some degree), however re-reading it introduces the more "radical" ideas.

In his essay he raises the idea of "mysticification." Which is great and all but he chooses to not define it. I had to keep going back trying to find a definition in context however failed. He seems to switch it around a lot.

My Composition professor raised a good point- Berger is so against...more

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May 27, 2011 BonB rated it 4 of 5 stars

A classic.

Like every art history student in the late 70s, I first read it in an Introduction to Art History class. It is in itself a historical document; published before America's fascination with French theory really took hold, and it neatly and succinctly offers capsule overviews of Benjamin and Barthes as well as a good if somewhat dated analysis of the nude from a feminist viewpoint. When Berger wrote this book, he was very much the rebellious iconoclast (going so far as to suggest that tra...more

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Feb 03, 2013 سلمى الشمّري rated it 4 of 5 stars

الكتاب يحوي سبعة مقالات، مبنية على برنامج تلفزيوني من إنتاج البي بي سي والذي يحمل العنوان ذاته. أربعة منها مستخدمة اللفظ والصورة بينما الثلاثة الأخرى تضم لوحات وصور تعبيرية فقط، مفسحة بذلك دورا للقارئ في ملاحظة واستنباط نظريات أخرى، شاذة أو مشابهة للنُسق الوارد هنا. من مرجع العلاقة بين ما نُبصره، ما نراه حقيقي بشكل ملموس، وما قد نتخيله لأفكارنا المصاغة مسبقا والمتأثرة بأحوال البيئة والمجتمع المحيط. مرورا بتاريخ اللوحات الزيتية وأثر وسائل النسخ الحديثة عليها وعلى قيمتها الحالية التي تعمد على كونه...more

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Aug 05, 2010 Audrey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fic

An excellent review of ideas about art history in real-world (read: political and social) context. Berger synthesizes ideas from Walter Benjamin, Levi-Strauss, and other thinkers succinctly and to great effect. He powers through the obfuscatory bullshit of art historians to get to meaty ideas about power and wealth, though I will warn you about a leftward slant. Personally, I'm in complete agreement with him, but if you are in a different political camp, or if you subscribe to the aforementioned...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Bailey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graduate-school-reads

I can only wonder how I study what I do and how I went so long without reading this prolific little book. Composed of four text + image essays and three image-only essays, Ways of Seeing traces art history from the Renaissance era through contemporary publicity spreads. Of note to me is the last essay on publicity, and it's relationship to oil paintings, and it's worth derived from the "future tense" of commodities. Berger asserts that our own personal view of our self is dramatically changed by...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Patrik Sampler rated it 5 of 5 stars

John Berger is a brilliant writer, and I'd recommend Ways of Seeing as an important must-read, not only because the subject is fascinating, but also because the book is easy to get through. The first chapter will be nothing new to anyone with a basic background in art history, but the analysis gets more engaging as the book goes on. The last chapter, on advertising, may be out of date -- things have changed (somewhat) since 1972. This was nevertheless one of the more inspiring parts of the book...more

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Jan 11, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. It was extremely enjoyable with paintings I recognized as well as new ones to read about. The author was well versed in the subject matter, as well as thought provoking. I especially enjoyed his thoughts on oil painting tradition and materialism. However, one point did stick with me throughout the book: the subjectivity of women. I don't think I agree with his stance on it, but, then again, I don't think, given my lack of expertise on the subject...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Danny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-or-close

This is, in essence, a wake-up call for everyone when dealing with visual art. If there's one thing this book (and the TV-series) manages to do, it's bring awareness. And that's not too shabby.

What really makes this great is its core message and educative value. I think it does so brilliantly. As much as there is a lot of space dedicated to Rembrandt or some more personal facts about historical figures, it's the attention to society, to context and so on that matters.

This is also the reason why...more

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Jan 24, 2010 erase-rwd rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-ref, 2010, gave-away

* Words written next to an artwork will change the way it's entirely perceived - such as in advertising, and the works of Damien Hirst (see "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living")
Reproductions and cropping a part of a painting will also change the way it's meaning.

This also draws similarities & differences between the wealth, status & power one already has, represented by the subjects/still-life objects/themes of paintings (everything but landscapes) which o...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

". . . [M:]en act, and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves." Berger's hypothesis in this essay is supported by his deconstruction of women taken as the subject of post-medieval European paintings. It's a set-up, mostly, so that he can then defend socialism. Whatevs. This essay alone is worth the read. The paintings are included in the book (only in black...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Jeffery rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found this book incredibly powerful. I read it during my most formative years. This little book was largely responsible for turning me against capitalism. It really opened my mind. I was young, naive, and thirsty for knowledge at the time- so this little book hit me like an epiphany. I think if you wanted to learn or teach a friend some core ideas of Marxism, you ought use this book instead of some boring treatise by Marx himself I or something. The book shows you not only new ways of seeing a...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

The links between art and ownership and capitalism in the four essays seem obvious now, but certainly weren't before I read this book. I never thought to put art in a historical context to see that the beginnings of capitalism coincided with the development of oil painting, which turned into a way for rich people to display their stuff. And I never thought to make a distinction between art and its images, where context matters more than its original purpose. I don't think I got anything out of t...more

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About John Berger

John Peter Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text.

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Quotes from Ways of Seeing

“A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. By contrast, a woman's presence . . . defines what can and cannot be done to her.” — 33 people liked it

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.” — 23 people liked it

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