John Berger Ways of Seeing, pt one.

Seeing comes before words

In the first chapter of the book John Berger asserts that we establish our place in the surrounding
world thruought sight, and explain it with words. Perspectives of sights are determinated either by
knowledge or faith; the related example in the book is the meaning and asociation of fire in the
middle ages and today. Further on, the author separates sight from a mechanical reacting to stimuli
where seeing is conditioned by the act of looking, which is an act of choice, and thus also a photo
ceases to be a mechanical record because it radiates with the presence of the person who took that
photo. Man made images can outlast what they represent, and when that happens, the image
gradually starts to represent the way how the image maker looked at what the image represented,
which is the result of an increasing conciousness of individuality that historically exists since the
beginning of the Renaissance. In the moment when an image becomes a pice of art, the way it is
looked upon changes because of the learned assumptions about art. These assumptions mistifies art
rather than it helps clarifying it.
Upon the invention of the camera, paintings become accessible to everyone aswell as mobile. This
means that we can now see the paintings in different places(contexts), whereas before the painting
belonged to it's originating building(i.e. a church) or to a museum. At this point, paintings are being
mistified with the concept of the original, where the price of the painting reflects its spiritual value:
The majority take it as axiomatic that the museums are full of holy relics which refer to a mystery
which excludes them: the mystery of unnacountable wealth
One another aspect of change in the era of pictorial reproduction is the meaning of the painting. This
is done in many ways; by reproducing a detail of a painting, by adding words , by images that are
seen before and after the painting. This illustrates the possibility that reproduction gives to anybody
to generate context and meaning. Here berger states that the National Cultural Heritage exploits the
authority of art to glorify present social system by making inequality seem noble and hierarchies
seem thrilling.
The question Berger poses with this essay, is of in which way, and for what purpose the language of
images(what is in place if the art of the past) is used, which is for instance reproduction copyright,
ownership of art presses and publishers, and policies of art galleries and museums, which should not
be presented, or looked upon as narrow professional issues, but as a political issue.