John berger ways of seeing summary chapter 1
Seeing establishes our place in a surrounding world and at the same time unsettles it in ways the words used to explain it never resolve. The book begins uniquely with its core message on the front cover continued on the back. Except for the front and back covers, all written words, reproduced works, and other images in the book are in black and white, bold or gray shade on glossy paper stock. Several reproduced works also have detail insets on the same or nearby pages. Most pages of text have at least one image and many pages have several images.
The seventh and last chapter is comprised of words and images and followed by an index "List of Works Reproduced" with page numbers on which the reproduction is shown. The third and fourth chapters alternate similarly, as do the fifth and sixth chapters. The book is uniquely structured, since the first chapter is comprised of words and images, but the second is comprised of images only. There is no table of contents that lists titles, numbers, or topics of the seven sections. The work has seven untitled but numbered chapters called essays in the authors' "Notes to the reader". Berger's work "Ways of Seeing" is a 166-page book including an eight page list of reproductions. The point is made by the painting and Berger's explanation that there is a gap between images one sees and words used to express their meaning in an environment. Magritte paints in the Surrealist school, which allows him more freedom of expression than Realism would. No "key" or other images or words suggest "dreams" either. Ironically however, below the image of a horse's head in the upper left quadrant is "the door", under an image of a clock in the next quadrant is "the wind", and the lower left pane contains a picture of a pitcher with "the bird" in script below. Underneath the image of a suitcase in that pane is written "the valise", which is another word for suitcase, satchel, grip, and other synonyms. A word in the lower right quadrant does indeed state what the picture is.
A viewer might assume there is some relation between the image and the script.
Each quadrant contains an image in black and white with white script words below. The painting is comprised of an apparent four-pane window with black background in each pane. Berger claims Magritte's painting "The Key of Dreams" comments on this gap. There is a constant gap between the words used and the sight seen. Words cannot settle the matter because they are static and the surrounding environment changes. Words are used to try to explain the environment that surrounds. Seeing also enables an individual to relate to the environment that surrounds him. There won’t be the same perceptive from now to next time,its constantly changing.A child sees before it learns to speak. Berger’s passage just forces on the change of peoples view and how the change will continue as technology increases. Each person has a different view however having the camera image can change a people’s perceptive and sometimes, missing a detail. An example is the cameras, they can change the meaning from the original causing the people to view differently. Berger states “The camera isolated momentary appearances and in so doing destroyed the ideas that images were timeless…The invention of the camera changed the way men saw.The visible came to mean something different to them.This was immediately reflected in painting.”(pg 18.)Berger mentions how peoples perspective are changing due to the technology. Berger introduces the different work out art and examples of art work however throughout showing the different perspective of seeing the artwork. He describes how our eyes are always moving and trying to figure out. Berger carefully describes the many ways of viewing the image and how our mind can trick us. In the passage “Ways of Seeing” John Berger describes the the way of viewing the outside world and viewing into a deeper meaning.However, John Berger try to force on how our perspectives have changed from before and now how it will continue to change.