Ways of Seeing: Art Perception

Ways of Seeing: Art Perception

By Shaynin Jade Richardson

John Berger's "Ways of Seeing"
book cover. 

This book was very fascinating to read, but it actually proved quite difficult for me to interpret it's main focus. Ways of seeing by primarily John Berger consists of four essays that attempt to interpret hidden ideologies in popular visual images like these. Through a collection of art work, John Berger takes his readers through a discussion and interpretation of the images. 

English art critic, novelist,
painter and poet, Mr. John Berger.

I began reading this book while enrolled in an introductory art history course a couple of semesters ago and really enjoyed the images along with the discussions of the different ways of viewing and interpreting certain works of art. The discussion of the depiction of women in advertisements and oil paintings is the most interesting to me, because it gives a detailed description and interpretation of the depiction of women in pieces all throughout the history of our imagery world. I really enjoyed looking at works from different times in history that portrayed women in similar ways.

While researching a bit more about the book, I recently learned that there was a television series covering the same material and that the books are actually the shows script and I was actually able to find some of those episodes on YouTube! If you’re into interpreting different aspects of art, this book will guide you through a great discussion of interpretations and ways of seeing art, along with providing the images to view while reading.