Notes
on a lecture given to University of South Australia students
10/05/2000
© Donald Richardson
2000
Ways of seeing is
a small book (Penguin, 1972) of a 1972 BBC blockbuster TV series.
It was a follow up to and, in part, a reaction to Kenneth Clark's
earlier, pioneering Civilisation series of 1969.
The book is poorly illustrated, but the TV series is lavish and
very 'visual'.
Berger's thesis is an early example of post-modern (sic)
criticism - i.e., he 'deconstructs' naive assumptions about visual
communications (photography, advertising etc), but it is marred
by many unsupported assertions and personal, emotive, psychological
'arguments'. This, however, allows us to analyze the thesis critically
(our opinion is no less valid than Berger's: he has - and had,
in 1972 - no great claim to authority on the matter).
The script of the series was written quite quickly, and actually
with little revision, Berger has admitted, and screened late
at night in the UK because the BBC was not sure how it would
be received or who would be its audience. Few realized in 1972
where advertising was going (we know now!)
(read quote from Good Weekend).
Berger's thesis actually makes only four simple points,
which he makes by visual means rather than words, but he overstates
them seriously (the analogy with advertising itself is striking!).
Many of them are things we are all aware of now (or at least
we should be! However, it may be that they are so omnipresent
now that we do not notice.).
Like Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay, The Work of Art in an Age
of Mechanical Reproduction - on which it is based - it is
an over-enthusiastic marxist reaction to 'admass' culture. In
the 1970s, intellectuals were just beginning to make a serious
study of advertising, entertainment and mass culture (what has
now become 'cultural studies').
The history of popular visual culture began with the invention
of photography in 1839. Photography was the ultimate derivation
from the detached, proto-scientific attitude of the painters
of the Italian Renaissance - Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci et
al - which analyzed vision and representation through the
'laws' of perspective (see Leon Baptista Alberti's treatise on
painting, Della Pittura (1436)).
(Cf paintings of the Middle Ages, which were symbolic rather
than realistic.)
The camera is a machine which makes it possible for everyone
- not only artists - to record and represent what they see. (Of
course, since the 19th century art has had other aims than representing
reality visually, although this still persists.)
The nude Berger devotes a good deal of space to the discussion
of the nude. To understand Berger's discussion, we need
to realize that pictures of naked people (not only attractive
women) - nudes (pronounced 'nyood', not 'nood') - are
a form of art (see Kenneth Clark's The Nude (1955)).
Other forms of art (painting only) are landscape, history
painting (narrative pictures of historical events or bible
stories), portraiture, abstract and still-life.
Whereas some nudes in art are intended to titillate, most are
not. For example, Michelangelo's slave sculptures and
David are visual metaphors for human struggle, dignity
and virtue.
The nude is not pornography (which represents usually partially
covered - not naked - bodies, and only for titillation).
From about the 14th century, Italian Renaissance painters were
imbued with humanism - the ancient Greek philosophy which asserts
the inherent worth of humans (a reaction to the mediaeval belief
in exclusively spiritual values). This was passed down to them
(after having been out of fashion throughout the middle ages)
via Roman sculpture, much of which was nude - or partly
so. (Much of the Roman sculpture that has come down to us is
copies of Greek originals.)
Berger's four points
1. (Chapter 1) Photography has changed the way we look at
the world - and at art (NB - a world without photography is unknown
to people born since the First World War, so it is difficult
for us to assess the validity of this statement). This thesis
Berger derives from Benjamin (who was of the age-group that witnessed
the change).
[This seems somewhat over-stated, however. (See Fuller, p.7).]
2. (Chapter 3) The nude in art is a woman (a commodity)
available to a male owner.
[Actually, this is only rarely true (see Michelangelo's slaves).]
3. (Chapter 5) The possession of a painting of something
is akin to possessing that thing. The period 1500-1900 was the
era of capitalism. Oil paintings serve the need of capitalists
to have valuable possessions and - thus - to celebrate their
wealth. Only oil paintings can have material value (watercolours
can have spiritual value - e.g., William Blake).
History painting reinforces noble values (and so do 'low-life'
genre paintings - presumably by implication). 'Not so much an
open window [a phrase used commonly to describe Renaissance paintings,
especially landscape views from an interior] as an open safe'
(p.109)
[This is specious non-argument. It ignores sculpture, for example,
and other items of demonstrable capitalist wealth - e.g., stamps,
antiques, land. It is true that history paintings portrayed the
conservative values of the establishment (see David's Oath
of the Horatii), but they were also those of the church,
royalty and the nobility as well as capitalists.]
4. (Chapter 7) Publicity (advertising) photographs are
an extension of history painting, except that they aim to stimulate
purchasing.
[This point relies on the former, i.e., that possessing a painting
of a thing is akin to possessing the thing itself, and is far
from established. It is true that photography in advertising
(and, more recently, on TV) aims to stimulate an impulse to purchase
the things illustrated but it is a leap of logic to try to connect
this with history painting.]
Follows more detailed analysis, chapter by chapter.
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