John Berger - "Ways Of Seeing"

The chapter of John Berger's "Ways Of Seeing" we analysed was made up completely of images. It involved the themes of social status in the cases of women, slavery, different races, and varying wealth. The images shown, some photos and some paintings, depict these in varying levels of respect and dignity. The effect of having no text to accompany these pictures, allows the viewer to make their own interpretation of each of them. These interpretations are often based upon the experiences of the viewer themselves, and so differ greatly from person to person.

For example this image, entitled "Woman With White Stockings" by Gustave Courbet, depicts it's female subject objectified, in a position of sexual vulnerability. The detailed and graphic portrayal of this would have been somewhat shocking when it was produced in the 1800's. However, to people viewing it today, having grown accustomed to a new generation of increasingly sexualised media, this painting, although still objectionable when seen through feminist eyes, is not quite so remarkable in that respect.
These are some questions we were given to discuss while studying the extract -

1. Consider why Berger has produced a chapter in a book based solely on images? 

2. What narratives are suggested by this sequence of images? What ties them together? 

3. What are the similarities of the images stylistically and from what periods of of art history do they come from?

4. Following on from this how can readings of these original images change over time?      

While studying this extract from John Berger's "Ways Of Seeing", I found a series of videos, hosted by Berger himself, of the same name -

This, like the extract we analysed, places emphasis on the ways in which our interpretation is effected by what we are surrounded by. In the video, Berger uses the example of paintings, and how they have become so easy to reproduce today. We are now able to see these paintings anywhere - in magazines, on television and computer screens etc - because of their reproduction, whereas we were once restricted to viewing just the original piece in it's initial state and setting. Therefore, the context of the artwork changes, adapting to our own lives; it is now surrounded by what we find familiar and so, to an extent, we associate the painting's circumstances with our own.