Ways of Seeing

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My Dad loved this book so much, he went and watched the original BBC Television Series!

This book in Essay One stumbles to get off the ground at first - but as you go through each of the essay's things start to make sense. There is a method to the author's madness. Berger forces you to question how you have viewed early oil paintings traditionally. He forces you to understand and try to accept just because it is an old painting doesn't mean it is great. Also, he deepens the argument that art has always been for the elite - the wealthy to show off their wealth. He brings out many parallels to how we view photography today and the relationships of the artist/viewer to the subject. I learned more than I expected. As an artist this reading challenges me to not prostitute my art, but to be sincere.

I was recommended this book by my thesis supervisor. I came into it thinking it was going to be insightful and interesting. What I encountered was a profound exploration of the time we live in, not always accurate, but deeply truthful. Over fifty years after its publication, this book remains supremely relevant, every page feels necessary. I have been talking about this book ever since I picked it up will not shut up about it for the foreseeable future. Highly recommend

I had been on the lookout for a good book on visual culture, and after a long search , I decided to buy this one, as it is a classic. A classic in the non-fiction genre means that latest books on the subject have stolen the main themes from the classic text-which may be very short-and then added verbosity and lots of pictures to make thick and expensive books. This book may seem like a small book full of pictures, but it propounds big ideas. For me it was a quick read, I finished it in a few hours, possibly more so due to the fact that the main ideas were thoughts already scattered in my head; Berger compiled them, stated them way more eloquently, and then some. As is often the case, this book took me back to Qur'anic verses, as it seemed to be tied to the main themes of the Islamic scripture. The section on the female nude, could very well have been a summary of a dissertation on the veil in Islam. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this review. Having just read Chomsky's "How the world works," it was quite intriguing to read Berger making the same connections of capitalism with envy, covetousness and social apathy. Just like Chomsky, his identification of capitalism as a roadblock to democracy was also equally intriguing. It was almost the same points being stated, except that this time the thesis was based on marketing and the visual arts. (less)

You have to read this. Do it.

This is a well-regarded book so I was surprised to find it underwhelming. Perhaps it simply didn’t age well. I can imagine that when it first appeared it may have seemed original, not much of it seems tired, dreary, and preachy. As other reviewers have noted, the design of the book, pure ugliness, does not help. I suspect that the shiny paper was chosen for reproduction of the illustrations, all black and white, but the glare of light from the slick pages and the overly bold sans serif typeface, and the small margins and tight binding made it a constantly irritating thing to read. Those shortcomings could have been ignored if the content of the book had been more insightful. There were a handful of interesting ideas in the book, but I can’t imagine wanting to read it again, or even open it. It didn’t cost a lot of money, so it had that going for it.

The book is incredible, hence my five star rating. I’d like to warn you that this print of the book however, is terrible. Lets start with this lazy cover, which is literally just the first page printed on front, text and all. I know that’s a superficial complaint but to me these things matter. The more important issue is the spine of the book. The pages start ripping out when you hold it open and after staying in my car for a couple of hours, the glue started to loosen and the pages fell out! I’ve never had this issue with another book. Another bad note is that it’s in black and white, making it difficult to see the art that it uses as examples in this book. Overall i highly highly reccomend this book but please buy another print.