Ways Of Seeing John Berger Meaning

Many people look at a piece of art and add their own interpretations or meanings to it before they read the title or learn the backstory. The way we see things is damaged by our knowledge and beliefs. When a picture is zoomed in or focused on a certain part, the whole painting’s meaning is taken out of context. Words and titles surrounding the painting change the meaning and interpretation of the painting. In essay four of his book, Ways of Seeing, John Berger presents to us a collage of art that have no relevance to each other, so that we can give our own opinion without interruption that the titles and words give us. When a painting is looked at in detail the context can be changed resulting in a different meaning.

Seeing a painting with

In the novel, Ways of Seeing we have a section in Essay four that has only pictures that are all zoomed in. For instance, on page sixty-eight we have The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel, in which we are only entitled to a portion of that painting. By only giving us a portion of the painting, we jump to conclusion and the meaning is completely taken out of context. The section that is shown to us can represent one part of the story when in reality the entire painting has a whole other meaning. The portion of the Triumph of Death that is shown on page sixty-eight does not seem so triumph because the painting has a grim reaper and many dead people. But Berger chose to zoom in the painting to demonstrate that we can change the meaning. Berger mentions, “Reproduction isolates a detail of a painting from the whole. The detail is transformed. An allegorical figure becomes a portrait of a girl [...] it inevitably becomes material for the film- maker’s argument” (25, 26). By isolating the girl, the meaning of the painting changes and it truly becomes all about her. When the actual picture tells a different story, but looking at just Venus we only acknowledge her beauty and only her beauty. Even though you can focus on a part of a painting and analyze it, the meaning will be different from the whole picture

The title of a painting gives us a hint of the pictures’ story. To emphasize, the image on the top of page seventy-three of Venus and Mars by Piero di Cosimo, has the title and we can infer that it is indeed Venus the goddess of love and beauty with Mars the god of war. Without the title, we would have to just guess and infer what the paintings’ story is. If it did not have the title, people would infer that it is just a depiction of two people laying naked in a field. On page twenty- eight of Ways of Seeing, Berger states, “It is hard to define exactly how the words have changed the image [...] The image now illustrates the sentence” (28). The painting alone has its own definition meanwhile adding a sentence changes the meaning to go along with that sentence. The Wheatfield with Crows by Van Gogh can be interpreted in both ways. First, Berger tells us to view the image alone, as we just see birds flying in a cornfield with no knowledge about why or when he created this piece. Secondly, on the next page, Berger reveals a sentence stating that the painting was the last piece of artwork by Van Gogh before killing himself. We interpret it a different way now, because we connect the sentence with the painting. Because it was his last piece, we connect the depression and sorrow into the piece. Titles and captions have great influences on how we look at the