Viewing modes

John Berger revolutionised the way we look at art.

His most influential and celebrated essay, based on the BBC series of the same name (a phenomenon that appealed to audiences across the board), is a reflection, in text and images, on the way our ideas of beauty, truth, gender or social class radically shape our perspective of reality.

And it goes beyond that, lifting the veil on the subliminal messages that power, property, male dominance or the objectification of women have left in our culture, from oil paintings to twentieth-century advertising.

By pointing out that, when we look at a painting or photograph, we are also looking at ourselves looking at them, filtering them through our emotions and experiences, Ways of Seeing makes every gaze a critique – an empathetic, political and powerful act.

With clairvoyant reasoning, Berger traverses art history and democratises its critique – demolishing the walls between high and low culture –, aware of its curious power to find similarities among us where there seem to be only differences.