Book Review

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

     The novelist and artist John Berger published Ways of Seeing as a supplement to a BBC documentary series about art history in 1972. It is a slim volume. Its ideas are weak, unoriginal, and poorly reasoned. It Is certainly a good book to ignore.

     Not one single chapter carries much intellectual weight. A prime example of Berger’s weak reasoning is in the section on the portrayal of nude women in art. Berger’s claim is that women in Renaissance paintings appear without clothing for the purpose of being enjoyed by aristocratic male viewers. As if that needed to be explained. The owner of each painting, presumably a male though it is hard to imagine that no women ever saw this stuff, owns the nude woman depicted the same way he owns property. Her nudity symbolizes his dominance and superiority over her. Her missing pubic hair symbolizes her lack of will in making sexual choices. While these claims may be true, Berger does not offer any explanation as to why we should accept his interpretation. John Berger says it is true so we must accept it as truth, case closed. By logical extension, this is like saying you own Jimi Hendrix’s corpse because you bought one of his records. Owning a painting of a woman is not equivalent to owning a woman. The painters hired women to model for them which entails the reality that those women could accept or reject the offer of hiring themselves out as models; this means they made choices. The painters themselves did not keep women chained up in dungeons. And Berger never takes up the idea that those women may actually have wanted and chosen to be portrayed in such ways. He does not cite one instance of a Renaissance woman saying anything whatsoever about her role as a painter’s model. So where does Berger get this idea from? He never tells. He also never cites any examples of what that time’s painters or aristocratic art patrons thought about these depictions of nude women either. Yet Berger claims to know exactly what they thought. Even worse, he writes as if all upper-class European men thought identical thoughts about women and he writes as though all women have identical thoughts about how women in paintings are portrayed. Common sense would tell you that opinions vary from person to person so overgeneralizing about whole populations of people who died long before he was born is absurd. Even if we accept his claim, which does appear to be plausible, why should be so concerned anyways? If the images are symbolic depictions, we do not have to automatically accept the content of the symbol as being legitimate. Each person can agree or disagree with the merits of what is symbolized as they choose. The ability and intent of the viewer to choose interpretations is never addressed either.

     John Berger’s stance as a male art critic in this matter is questionable too. He interprets these paintings on behalf of women without acknowledging whether or not he even consulted with women on the matter. How does he claim to be a representative and spokesperson for women? Isn’t he denying women a voice in this issue by claiming to be the arbiter of correct interpretations on their behalf? Isn’t that a form of male domination that he would otherwise decry? After all, he complains about women not having their own voice in Renaissance art so doesn’t this make him guilty of the same crime?

     The chapter on oil painting is no better. Rich Europeans buy paintings of objects because owning paintings of objects is the same as owning, or at least desiring to own, the object itself. Buying and owning a painting of a farm is the same as owning a farm. But how does ho know this? Research into how art owners of the time thought about ownership and art is nonexistent in Berger’s monologue. Why is this even raised as a problem? Are we supposed to accept at face value that purchasing and owning property is inherently wrong? Berger was a communist sympathizer so his answer would be “yes, owning property is inherently wrong”. But why should this idea be accepted? Just because he says so? If property is so terrible than why did John Berger sell his own paintings? Why did he have his books published by large corporate publishing firms to be sold as objects in a capitalist marketplace? Why did he choose to live in England instead of moving to the Soviet Union which was still communist in the 1970s? In the USSR, he would not have had the freedom to paint what he wanted to and he would not be allowed to publish books that criticize the political or economic system so maybe John Berger was being just a little bit of a hypocrite by hating the system he depended on for his own intellectual freedom.

     The final chapter is about the direct connection between oil painting and advertising. He does provide some insight into the psychology of advertising which makes the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable and incomplete. Advertising provokes the consumer to desire products that make them feel part of an elite, like the Renaissance era aristocracy who owned the most property. No doubt, that appears to be more or less true. But again, so what? Why is it wrong to want to buy things? There do not appear to be many people in the world who do not want to have any possessions at all. But John Berger never examines the other side of the argument. His accusatory tone is manipulative and authoritarian; he wants to lay a heavy guilt trip on his audience and in the end, guilt trips are all about controlling people. Just read what Nietzsche and Foucault had to say about the Christian church’s use of guilt as a method of coercion and domination.

     Ways of Seeing presents us with sparsely worded text with weak reasoning and tiny black and white pictures meant to exemplify what he says. The claims lack intellectual rigor and the pictures are so difficult to see that this whole book comes off as a poorly executed work of juvenile nonsense. It is best to pass this one over. Its proper place is in the recycling bin.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. The British Broadcasting Corporation, London: 1985.