‘A.book made by John Berger, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, ‘Michael Dibb, Richard Hollis Mes PWNS air, So WAYS OF SEEING ‘based on the BBC television serias with JOHN BERGER British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin BooksNote to the reader -This book has been made by five of us. Our staring point wes some of tho iene contained in the tleaslon Maes Gening. We have tried to oxtendl and elaborate sar “They have influenced not only what we say bat ie as roowact about tying ey The carried euch to do with our purpose as the argu contained within it. "The book consists of seven 1 Four of th ‘only images. These purely fn and on various ments ‘the verbal essays. it "o information at a is given Sometime images reproduced because H asemed {0 0 Sey soar information might distract from the poles boi ‘made. ‘can be found in the List Tall cases, however, this information i a eseerveriuced wich be pried atthe end ot tne Noo vie of the essays protends to deal with more chan cartin napucts of each eubject perticlary thoes spect than corrate relief by a modern historical consciousnecs, ‘eeoeet palais fas bean te amet a Proves Merton‘Sesing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it oan speak. ‘But there Is also another sense in which seeing ‘comes before words. It in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, ‘but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it, The relation between what we sea and what we know is, over settlod. Each evening we sce the sun set. We know ‘that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the ‘explanation, never quite fits the sight. The Surrealist painter Magritte commented on this always-present gap betweon words and seeing in a painting called The Key of Dreamseres ‘The way we see things Is affected by what we know or what we In the Middle Ages when mon bolieved in the physical oxistence of Hell the sight of fire must have meant something difforont from what it means today. Novortholoss their idea of Hell owed a lot to the sight of fire consuming and the ashes remaining — ‘to the exporience of the pain of burns. When in love, the completeness which no wor ness which only the act of making love can can never be quite covered by them, is not mechanically reacting to stimuli. (It can only be thought of in ‘this way if one isolates the small part of the process which look is an act of choice. As a result of this act, what we brought within our reach — though not necessarily within notice how the faculty of touch is like sight.) We never look at just one thing; at the relation betwe continu static, limited form of we are always looking things and ourselves. Our vision ie ly active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present tous as we are. ‘Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can «also be seen. The eyo of the other combines with our own one ‘to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible worla, If we accept that we can s0e that hill over there, we propose that from that hill we can be seen. The reciprocal nature of vision is more fundamental than that of epoker this erally, “and an attempt to discover how ‘he sees dialogue. And often dialogue is an attempt to verbali an attempt to explain how, either metaphorical you see things’ things’. {in the sense in which we use the word in this images are man-made, a 1 sight which hasin which It first made its appearance and preserve moments or a few centuries. Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at photograph, we are aware, however slightly, of the photographer solocting that sight from an infinity of other ‘This is true even in the most casual family possible sights ‘snapshot. The photographer's way of seeing is reflected in his Civilization choice of subject. The painter's way of seeing is reconstituted, Form by the marks he makes on the canvas or paper. Yet, although Status Taste, ote. every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or ‘appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of sosing. (It may be, for example, that Shella is one figure am ‘twenty; but for our own reasons she is the one we ha for.) the word as iti, (The worl abjctive tore, coneciousness) Out of true with the resent. thess assumptions obmcure the past They eyeuey Is never there weling to be Sieconered tb acogied fr east wha Hy siways constitutes the ralation brwoon s pravont eu Consequenty fear of the present lends te myatfcnton ete bast. Tho past isnot for living in: it fea well et eonetonions {rom which we draw in order to act. Cutter! myeiionton ot the past entails a double loss. Works of art ure reas, unnecessarily ramote. And the past stars ue foo Conciuslons to compote actor, When we ee! landesape, we situate our It 1 we ‘saw the art of the part we would sass curselves in history. Whan we are prevented from seaing ot th history which batonge to us wprvaton? Im th ond, the art of the bast is being mputified bectuce a pillaged ninety 1 which can retroapecteayjutity es, and such justiictan con se in modern terme. And 20; Ineutay, it Images were first made to conjure up the appearances of something that was absont. Gradually it became evident that an image could outlast what it ‘represented; it then showed how something or somebody had] ‘once looked — and thus by implication how the subject had ‘once been seen by other people. Letor still the specific vision of the image-maker was also rocognized as part of the record. ‘An image bocame a record of how X had seen Y. This was the result of an increasing consciousness of individuality, accompanying an increasing awareness of history. It would sh to try to date this last development precisely. But certainly in Europe such consciousness has existed since the beginning of the Renaissance. [No othor kind of relic or text from the past can offer such a direct testimony about the world which ‘surrounded other people at other times. In this respect no longer make mystifies. Let us consider a typical example of such fon. A two-volume study was recently published on tis the authoritative work to date on this painter Of specialized art history it 1s no better and ne Worse than the average. {is not to deny the expressive or imaginative quality of art, ‘treating It ‘the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist's experience of the visible 10aun ‘They were officially commissioned port 12 of over eighty, was destitute. Most of his life he had been in debt. During the winter of 1664, the year he began painting plotures, he obtained three loads of peat on public, charity, otherwise he would have frozen to death. Those who now sat for him were administrators of such public charity. ‘The author records these facts and then explicitly says that It would be incorrect to read into the paintings any criticism of the sitters. There is no evidence, he says, that Hals painted them in a spirit of bitterness. The author considers thom, however, remarkable works of art and explains why. Here he writes of the Regentesses: | Each women speaks to us of the human condition with qual importance. Each woman stands out with equal clarity against the enormous dark surface, yet they are linked by a firm rhythmical arangemont and the subdued