John Berger – Ways of Seeing
John Berger 1972 BAFTA award winning BBC series about the
hidden ideologies in visual images.
I have watched the series and will consider the salient
points relevant to Kiss. I will use Berger’s accompanying book
sparingly in this section, but will consider it further when undertaking my
analysis of Kiss.
Episode 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk
The first episode reflects on the effect of taking specific
images from a whole and how these can be manipulated.
Episode 2
This
episode is of most interest in the context of this blog. I have transposed a segment which I consider
highlights Berger’s thinking on the subject.
‘Men dream of women,
women dream of themselves being dreamt of.
Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. Woman constantly meet glances that act like
mirrors reminding them how they look or how they should look, behind every
glance is a judgement, […} A woman is always accompanied except when quite
alone, perhaps even then by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or
weeping at the death of her father she cannot avoid envisaging herself walking
or weeping. From earliest childhood she
is taught to persuaded, to survey herself continually, everything she is and
everything she does because how she appears to others and how she appears to
men is crucially importance for what is normally thought of as the success of
her life’.
0.00 – 3.00 (NB 133
words not included in word count)
Berger sums this up in his book with ‘men act and women
appear’ (p.47).
The history of nudes within art is considered. Berger explains, using Clark’s (1956) notion
that to be naked is simply to be without clothes but to be nude is to be an
object and a sight for those who are dressed, a nude is aware of being seen by
a spectator. Berger however sees it
slightly differently, in that to be naked is to be yourself, but to be nude is
to be seen naked by others, and to not be recognised as yourself, but as an
object. He comments ‘To be naked is to be without disguise, to be on display is
to have the surface of ones own skin, the hairs of ones own body turned into a
disguise, a disguise that cannot be discarded’.
He discusses Renaissance art as being designed for the male
pleasure of looking at women, as with the instance of Susanna and the Elders, where the very image is that of men
looking, and judging a young woman. This
is also seen in early imagery of Adam and Eve,
in what could be considered the very first instance of seeing, the moment when they consider
their nakedness. Berger considers this
as a further instance of women being judged, and in Eve’s case, condemned by
men ever after. Berger considers the majority of women in these works are
merely lined up for viewing by the males who owned the artwork.
He goes on to highlight out of the tens of thousands of
European idealist humanist artworks only twenty to thirty capture the image of
a women seen revealed as herself rather than placed nude by the artist for the
male spectator. These rare images Berger
considers ‘almost as personal as love letters’ (09.40).
Episode 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7wi8jd7aC4
This episode considers the use of art, predominately oil
painting as a means of documenting the wealth of its owners. It will not be considered for this blog but
is worth watching.
Episode 4
This episode evaluates the images used in advertising and
how the ‘ideal spectator’ for these images is usually assumed to be male.
Although somewhat dated in appearance this TV series was fascinating. Upon its original broadcast it would have
been groundbreaking and considering the number of sections available on You
Tube it remains a relevant and useful argument for even today’s image driven
media.
Bibliography,
Berger, J. (1972) Ways
of Seeing. London.: Penguin.
Puig, M. (1991) Kiss
of the Spider Woman. New York: Vintage International
TW19751 (2012). John Berger / Ways of Seeing , Episode 1
- 4 (1972) .. [online]. Available from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okD_37Xnlvc,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7wi8jd7aC4 ,
[Accessed 3.1.13].
Clark, K. (1956) The
Nude – A Study in Ideal Form
[online] accessed: 3 January 2013 http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/nudes/naked.html
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