Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.94
EAN: 9780140135152
Edition: Television tie-in edition
ISBN: 0140135154
Label: Penguin
Manufacturer: Penguin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 1990-05
Publisher: Penguin
Studio: Penguin

---

Related Items:

• On Photography
• The Story of Art
• Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Vintage classics)
• The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change
• History of Art: A Students' Handbook
• see more

Alternate Versions: Click to Display

Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display

---

Rating: - If it's outdated now, it's because it opened a new era
'Ways of Seeing' is a book which some readers may find a bit puzzling. The ads reproduced in its pages look naive to us, in their unsophisticated emphasis on luxury and glamour, and Berger's commentary on advertising may seem a bit simple, but if so it's because he was one of the first and best critics to compare the effects and uses of advertising and fine art. The main difference between him and most contemporary commentators is that Berger had an independent perspective that they lack; his analysis ... Read More

---

Rating: - Thought provoking...
I recently had to read this as the basis for an essay, but was pleasantly surprised. It is an interesting snippet questioning our view of art and if it has changed throughout history. I found a few of the assumptions a little irritating, such as that Reubens would not have been aware of the device of depicting the human body in an anatomically incorrect pose in order to give the impression of movement. (Particularly as this is something that was well known among artists for hundreds of years and had been ... Read More

---

Rating: - Essential reading for any kind of visual artist
This compact, easy to read pictoral/text book is a great aid to understanding the semantics of visual conception. You may think some of it obvious, and some of it a bit cooky, for example its marxist angles on the reasons why we see things the way we have come to, but it does get the student of all things visual thinking hard about it all. Whilst not being a specific aid to any particular field, it is an essential general reader for anyone studying the visual arts, from graphic design to theatre design, and ... Read More

---

Rating: - Confounding seeing with perception.
Berger's book is a typical leftist product of the period. He is so desperate to bring class war into the topic that he comes across as faintly absurd. For example - and there are many such - he talks of "..the esoteric approach of a few specialised experts who are the clerks of the nostalgia of a ruling class in decline." when criticising other art critics. I often found myself laughing aloud at such pompous absurdities.

When it comes to his "seeing comes before words" he shows he does not understand ... Read More

---

Rating: - Some sound ideas, but out-of-date and prejudiced
A short beginner's guide to the philosophy of art, John Berger's 1972 book "Ways Of Seeing" is often talked about as being a seminal piece of critical writing about art, but it lacks the relevance and profundity that it may have been credited with on its first publication 35 years ago.

The principles that Berger details about the viewer and the subject in imagery are simple but sound. All too often Berger is either stating the obvious or making rather questionable generalisations (for example "All publicity ... Read More

---