Blog #10

In John Berger's documentary "Ways of Seeing" he discusses and criticized the way in which our society sees and understands oil painting and indeed art in general. He looks at the history of oil painting and how it was seen then and how that perception has changed. He starts off by talking about the advent of the camera, the use of a camera to frame a composition, and to guide a narrative along a prescribed and controlled. He then shares with us the ability of today's technology to show us things in a manner unique to human society. When a painting was made it existed in the place that was its intended housing. Often times paintings were part of a particular room or building, in their original frame and place, they were to give the viewer a certain feeling about them. In today's society we can look up these pictures at our leisure at a computer, meaning that painting has been brought into our own space, we view it in terms of our own lives. This is a way in which a painting's meaning is open to a unique interpretation from anyone. When a camera shows us a painting in its entirety we can't observe the details, it in effect means nothing to us, when the camera begins to zoom in to outline certain details, we only see what it wants to show us, in effect changing the way a painting can be interpreted. It can show a landscape, the way people dressed, or a narrative. He said the same is true of viewing a painting set to music, he reasoned music is more subtle and can change the way we see art without us knowing it. To further punctuate his point he shows a painting to children who have no information about the painting, even without knowing the particular artist was a homosexual, they were able to point out the femininity he gave his figures, the purposeful ambiguity that showed in the genders. He went on to discuss the use of the female nude in a painting, he described a female nude not as a naked person, but as an object that is meant to symbolize something, not a person depicted as not wearing clothes, but a metaphor who's perceived "clothes" are their nude body. The way in which many commissioners of art choose to view their women, more as possessions than people and how these views have carried largely into our society. He ended the documentary with the obvious parallels of the traditions of oil paint and advertising. He pointed out the obvious parallels to draw out the glowing differences. When an oil painting was commissioned, and artist was paid a sum of money by a wealthy person to show his possessions and portray his way of life. It showed him his own greatness and adorned his space with narrative of the waking life he led from day to day. He then showed these ideas as they were portrayed in advertising. The large difference being that advertisements were attempts at persuading those who did not have the things shown. These advertisements show the product as a means by which to transform their lives, to give them this ideal life. It was a way of making people feel more wealthy for spending their money on a product when in reality they were less wealthy because they spent money on that product. He then linked the obvious traditions of oil painting and these ads. Sometimes elements of oil paintings were added to advertising and sometimes the painting itself was inserted into and advertisement to convey a sense of wealth, luxury, and sophistication. These ads could then be placed in such a way, or "framed" by the camera into a proper context that strengthened their message.

I found the documentary extremely informative well thought out. I appreciated the insight Berger gave to this history of oil paint and how it was made and how we have come to view it. He urged people watching to be skeptical of everything, even himself and his documentary, that we need to properly perceive the world around us to really see the value of something. While there were moments of the film that seemed in a sense hokey, and quintessentially British if I may be so plain. The ideas in the documentary were outlined through extensive research and great observation. The history of art has played a huge role in our day to day lives, and the traditions held by oil painting have held up in some ways but drastically changed in others. I feel that this documentary outlined an important line of thinking and encouraged perception in a way that causes one to not only think about the subjects of oil paint and our society, but about how we should see things as a whole.