3.15.2006
Ways of Seeing (Film and Media Studies)
Title
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1977.
Field
Film and Media Studies
Summary
Ways of Seeing is based on the BBC series of the same name. The first chapter is rather like a summary of Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (and says as much). It charts the disjuncture between sight and knowledge, and defines an image as "a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved." (10) It discusses what the camera does to perspective and the way we understand seeing and what reproducibility does to the work of art - destroying the authority of the original.
The second chapter is a visual essay on the representation of women. The third essay writes on the bounded gaze of the woman (as in, the woman must always see herself as an object - "a woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself." (43) It goes on to chart the history of the female nude.
The fourth chapter is another visual essay on portraiture / oil painting. The fifth chapter deals with the revolution of oil painting for the art object as commodity. "Oil painting conveyed a vision of total exteriority." (87)
I am not sure of the unifying theme of the fifth chapter visual essay. The sixth essay deals with publicity images, asserting that publicity is a language in itself, based on the deferal of pleasure (and its materialism, links it to the oil painting). "It is a mistake to think of publicity supplanting the visual art of post-Renaissance Europe; it is the last moribund form of that art. Publicity is, in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future. It cannot itself supply the standards of its own claims."(139) "Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy." (149)
"Publicity, situtated in a future continually deferred, excludes the present and so eliminates all becoming, all development. Experience is impossible within it. All that happens, happens outside it." (153)
Other Thoughts
I really liked the chapters on oil painting and publicity. I am not sure I agree with them, but they made bold assertions about innovation and the history of the way we see. It was neat. The publicity was also neat for me to think about in terms of time and narrative.
Other QE Works Cited
Benjamin, W. Illuminations (Film and Media Studies)
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1977.
Field
Film and Media Studies
Summary
Ways of Seeing is based on the BBC series of the same name. The first chapter is rather like a summary of Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (and says as much). It charts the disjuncture between sight and knowledge, and defines an image as "a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved." (10) It discusses what the camera does to perspective and the way we understand seeing and what reproducibility does to the work of art - destroying the authority of the original.
The second chapter is a visual essay on the representation of women. The third essay writes on the bounded gaze of the woman (as in, the woman must always see herself as an object - "a woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself." (43) It goes on to chart the history of the female nude.
The fourth chapter is another visual essay on portraiture / oil painting. The fifth chapter deals with the revolution of oil painting for the art object as commodity. "Oil painting conveyed a vision of total exteriority." (87)
I am not sure of the unifying theme of the fifth chapter visual essay. The sixth essay deals with publicity images, asserting that publicity is a language in itself, based on the deferal of pleasure (and its materialism, links it to the oil painting). "It is a mistake to think of publicity supplanting the visual art of post-Renaissance Europe; it is the last moribund form of that art. Publicity is, in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future. It cannot itself supply the standards of its own claims."(139) "Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy." (149)
"Publicity, situtated in a future continually deferred, excludes the present and so eliminates all becoming, all development. Experience is impossible within it. All that happens, happens outside it." (153)
Other Thoughts
I really liked the chapters on oil painting and publicity. I am not sure I agree with them, but they made bold assertions about innovation and the history of the way we see. It was neat. The publicity was also neat for me to think about in terms of time and narrative.
Other QE Works Cited
Benjamin, W. Illuminations (Film and Media Studies)
# posted by SMRT : 10:10 PM
