John Berger presents a multifaceted argument regarding art, its interpretations, and the various ways of seeing. Berger asserts that there is gap between the image that the subject sees and the one that was originally painted by the artist. Many factors influence the meaning of the image to the subject and those factors are unique to the subject themselves. Seeing is not simply a mechanical function but an interactive one. Even the vocabulary is subject to specialized scrutiny by Berger; an image is a reproduction of an original product, while only the product itself may truly be a ‘painting’. Images are seen at an arbitrary location and circumstance – they are different for everyone – while the product, which is in one place, is experienced …show more content…
He declares that there are many different ways in which a subject views a piece of art – based on everything from music to location to current emotion – and that that is not the same meaning that the artist intended. However, there are an infinite amount of factors that play into interpretation. Humans, thankfully, exhibit very different reactions to things, from likeminded to completely opposite, yet very rarely are they identical. Regardless of the outside disturbances, while unraveling the meaning behind a piece of art the different subjects will have inherently different interpretations. People may have a slightly augmented sense of a piece of art while in its physical presence but the initial reaction very often still remains. To use a personal example, for the longest time I have been underwhelmed by the so-called unparalled beauty of perhaps the world’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. When given the opportunity to visit the Louvre in Paris I was only given, as I said, a heightened sense of my original reaction to the painting. Housed in its own personal room, implanted on an oversized white wall, hanging behind bullet proof glass case sat the painting I had seen 100,000 other times. I was dissatisfied, but with the room packed shoulder to shoulder with many others tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of Da Vinci’s masterpiece, I suppose I may have been the only one. Perhaps – which leads into Berger’s second point – all those people so eager to see the Mona Lisa had been, as he describes, “mystified.” He believes that the average art expert has the ability to blindfold the reader and transfer their assumptions onto them – which perhaps is true if the subject has no real interest in the art itself. Everything that one is told about anything with highly interpretable qualities
It was important to keep Harrison’s death being broadcasted on TV because it shows the side of the government people don’t see. If it wasn’t broadcasted then the people wouldn’t have seen how the government killed a man who was just trying to prove to the people that the handicaps weren’t helping anyone. According to the movie 2081 Harrison tries to prove that handicaps aren’t helping anyone, so he takes his handicaps off and shows the citizens what he can do without them. In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” the Handicap General ends up killing Harrison and his empress causing Hazel to cry.
Spending time looking at art is a way of trying to get into an artists’ mind and understand what he is trying to tell you through his work. The feeling is rewarding in two distinctive ways; one notices the differences in the style of painting and the common features that dominate the art world. When comparing the two paintings, The Kneeling Woman by Fernand Leger and Two Women on a Wharf by Willem de Kooning, one can see the similarities and differences in the subjects of the paintings, the use of colors, and the layout
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their significance comes through our initial visual interpretation. When we first view a painting or a statue or other piece of art, we notice first the visual details – its size, its medium, its color, and its condition, for example – before we begin to ponder its greater significance. Indeed, these visual clues are just as important as any other interpretation or meaning of a work, for they allow us to understand just what that deeper meaning is. The expression on a statue’s face tells us the emotion and message that the artist is trying to convey. Its color, too, can provide clues: darker or lighter colors can play a role in how we judge a piece of art. The type of lines used in a piece can send different messages. A sculpture, for example, may have been carved with hard, rough lines or it may have been carved with smoother, more flowing lines that portray a kind of gentleness.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. “Harrison Bergeron,” shows the dangers of equality being taken too directly. The story is also used a critique against communism; a theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members. The year is 2081, and due to new amendments created by the government everyone in the United States is considered equal. “They weren't only equal before God and the law. They are equal every which way” meaning no one is smarter, better looking, or stronger than anyone else; if so they are forced into wearing some kind of handicap. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. challenges our assumptions of the nature of equality. “Harrison Bergeron” conveys the importance of competition, the dangers of equality being forced on to its citizens goes against human rights, and what could happen if equality is based off of individual attributes.
She uses sources from researchers and historians from different areas of study. Some art historians she quotes from include Fredick Antal, Fritz Novotny and A M Hammacher whom explains Van Gogh’s artwork based on his emotions and feelings. She also quotes researchers such as doctors, philosopher like Karl Jaspers, Rey and Peyron as well as writers such as Meyer Schapiro who tries looking at his works on a psychological level. The quotes she takes are relatively long and can take up as much as half a page and are quotes which she later disregards and argues that it is incorrect. By doing this, she is proving her point that she is right and those researchers have to look deeper into the meaning.
Unlike science, art is subjective. The artist leaves behind a part of himself in his work. Therefore, each piece has its own distinct perspective. Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits show her view on her life, on how she has faced so many struggles, yet managed to be a strong person. When we see or hear or read an artistic creation, it produces a mood such as calm or loud, fear or safety. For example, the Eiffel Tower gives Paris a majestic awe; everyone who passes by feels the strength of the 113-year-old grand structure. Art also has a texture. Photographs reveal much through their textures; grainy surfaces often make the picture more realistic while smooth ones seem softer. When we hear a piece of music or see a film, a rhythm carries us from one part to another. Not just true for these two genres, rhythm is present in any artistic work. These few properties are characteristic of everything we encounter in the world of art, the world of human expression. Most have other special features also. Most of the time, though, we do not think about these characteristics because we do not have enough time to pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds.
In the book “Ways of Seeing,” John Berger explains several essential aspects of art through the influence of the Marxism and art history that relate to social history and the sense of sight. Berger examines the dominance of ideologies in the history of traditional art and reflects on the history, class, and ideology as a field of cultural discourse, cultural consumption and cultural practice. Berger argues, “Realism is a powerful link to ownership and money through the dominance of power. ”(p.90)[1] The aesthetics of art and present historical methodology lack focus in comparison to the pictorial essay.
A small glimmer of hope in an imperialistic world is only taken away in order to ensure equivalence in an imperfect society. Harrison Bergeron is a classic sociological tale written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that is based on the sociological aspect of everyone being equal - not one individual could be above another. This short story focuses on the idea of symbolism by using masks and handicaps to force the social norm of being the same while foreshadowing the courage of being unique in a seemingly perfect world, all while displaying irony through the way in which our society runs today. This story relates to today’s society in that both are alike in that individuals want to break free from societies constraints of social norms.
Henry John Drewal wrote an article “Senses in Understandings of Art” in which he describes his research path of discovering how important the five senses of the human are to create understandings in Art. He gained a lot of his insight of multi-sensory concepts in the African art from the Yoruba people. Drewal focuses a lot of the article on mind-body matter that he learned throughout his research. This essay includes my response to Drewal’s perceptions and ideas in his article.
In Confronting Images, Didi-Huberman considers disadvantages he sees in the academic approach of art history, and offers an alternative method for engaging art. His approach concentrates on that which is ‘visual’ long before coming to conclusive knowledge. Drawing support from the field of psycho analytics (Lacan, Freud, and Kant and Panofsky), Didi-Huberman argues that viewers connect with art through what he might describe as an instance of receptivity, as opposed to a linear, step-by-step analytical process. He underscores the perceptive mode of engaging the imagery of a painting or other work of art, which he argues comes before any rational ‘knowing’, thinking, or discerning. In other words, Didi-Huberman believes one’s mind ‘sees’ well before realizing and processing the object being looked at, let alone before understanding it. Well before the observer can gain any useful insights by scrutinizing and decoding what she sees, she is absorbed by the work of art in an irrational and unpredictable way. What Didi-Huberman is s...
The piece, “From Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, describes how a man’s actions are perceived and always focused on showing power. However a woman’s presence is opposite and that everything she does determines how people see her. Her choices and actions are what we go by to determine who the woman is. Whereas men want to be seen but women just want to be accepted (4). Aaron H. Devor in, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” argues that men and women both strive to obtain power (112). Devor shows how the means of how they obtain said power are vastly different and mirror the statements that Berger claims (114). Devor helps further our understanding of how we come to act the specific ways that are customary by divulging the ongoing thought process toward gender of children (109). Berger as well as Devor seem to agree on the topic of how the members of a gender act in society, the motive behind these actions are where differences between the writers
Mr. Berger states in his essay, “The reciprocal nature of vision is more fundamental than that of a spoken dialogue. And often dialogue is an attempt to verbalize this- an attempt to explain how, either metaphorically or literally, “you see things” (120). This statement is a use of the rhetorical strategy, ethos, which is what Mr. Berger uses to gain influence and trust with the academic audience that he is intending to instill new knowledge in. This is a strong use of ethos that leads into how art is viewed so
Paintings, like many forms of art, are very subjective—what one may find intriguing another may completely disagree. “Art is physical material that affects a physical eye and conscious brain” (Solso, 13). To glance at art, we must go through a process of interpretation in order to understand what it is we are looking at. Solso describes the neurological, perceptual, and cognitive sequence that occurs when we view art, and the often inexpressible effect that a work of art has on us. He shows that there are two aspects to viewing art: nativistic perception—the synchronicity of eye and brain that transforms electromagnetic energy into neuro-chemical codes—which is "hard-wired" into the sensory-cognitive system; and directed perception, which incorporates personal history—the entire set of our expectations and past experiences—and knowledge (Solso, preface)
In Berger’s essay, he uses the term “mystification”. Mystification is one way to set out describing the ways in which people perceive what they see. When people look at same painting or advertisement, they perceive and interpret differently. As John Berger says, “we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves” (156). We see things differently from one another and in the beginning we see things, but without language and understanding, we cannot explain what it is we see. The way we see things is predetermined by different factors such as our own experiences and status.