Our Imaginative Genius keeps the sounds & movement of the painting alive: paintings (and photographs) are never still or silent. Their beliefs informed their interpretation of the sight. In the Middle Ages, for instance, people who believed in the religious concept of hell would think of hell whenever they saw fire. Sights are affected by what individuals know or believe. Our imaginations hear the sounds of water pouring, other voices in the adjacent room or birdsong through the window. Berger begins by discussing how people interpret what they see. Together, four episodes focus on the role of context in creating meaning, the male gaze, and the different functions of depictions of wealth in early modern and late modern imagery. Although the book and programme make the same case, they do so in slightly different ways, and the programme is well worth watching. Summary: This classic BBC miniseries, narrated by John Berger, critically examines Western visual culture from the Renaissance to today (or at least 1972). Our imaginations prevent us from silently seeing any painting showing someone pouring a jug of water into a bowl. 1 John Berger, Ways of Seeing INTRODUCTION Published in 1972 and based on a BBC television programme of the same name, this is a very influential text on art criticism. Ways of Seeing Episode 1 Ways of Seeing Episode 2 Ways of Seeing Episode 3 Ways of Seeing Episode 4 Ways of Seeing: Book John Berger (5 November 1926 2 January 2017) John Berger was a man who forged a path to help dismantle the notion of art being something for an elite few. Berger is also wrong to claim we see paintings in absolute silence. Only when a close-up remains the ONLY view of a camera can"the comprehensive effect of the painting.be changed." Once we've seen the whole painting, we won't forget it. Berger also omits memory when discussing camera close-ups of Breughel's crowded painting. Cameras are tools that facilitate & extend our glorious (happy or traumatic) memories. The camera didn't invent memory (any more than the artist can paint pictures of things or people that only remain in front of her). (At 21:25, speaking about reproductions, Berger does infer the significance of memory & experience, but only by inference and referencing reproductions alone) Memory precludes the camera. Our imaginative minds - packed with memories of many paintings we've seen elsewhere & our whole life experience - CONTEXTUALISES what our eyes see and influences the way we see them. Our eyes are not the ONLY way we see a painting. (NB: Feel free, as Berger invites at the end of his presentation, to "be sceptical of" the following critique!) Berger's omission of memories & imagination questions his false presumption that we only ever see paintings in isolation & silence.
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