High art, which he saw as a snooty, aristocratic preserve policed by his arch-enemy Lord Kenneth Clark, is infinitely more accessible than he anticipated. This has had some consequences Berger never guessed at. The democratisation of the image that Berger welcomed in the era when David Hockney was painting A Bigger Splash has got so much bigger and splashier. As for postcards of paintings, today we are more likely to snap a masterpiece in an art gallery on our phones. Now, of course, it also means on Facebook, Instagram and the internet at large. The most uplifting thing about Ways of Seeing is Berger’s optimism about the age of the mass-circulating reproduced image, which, back in 1972, meant images in newspapers and magazines, on advertising hoardings and television. As in the death of a person, so in the decay of a society. When you have lost the power to speak, when consciousness is fading, there will still be faces surrounding the bed. Seeing comes before words – and after them. Within it we could begin to define our own experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us … If the new language of images were used differently, it would, through its use, confer a new kind of power. Or, in Berger’s inspiring words: “For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. This is your own image world, in which you find your own meanings. Think of a pinboard where you stick your own favourite pictures, of all sorts, from magazine photographs to postcards of famous paintings.
In 1972, Berger wrote that we are free to see images in collages of our own making. That is no surprise given that oil painting was essentially, for much of its history, a way to visually “own” women, commodities and land. The advertising industry loves to claim the aura of “art” for its imagery. A painting of a naked woman that was made by Titian 500 years ago is just as much about sex and power as a piece of modern pornography or a titillating poster. It is a nostalgic lie to see them as lofty spiritual creations.
Works of art are simply images among other images.
The TV series belongs to the pixellated past, but the brilliantly designed book published alongside it by Penguin, with boldly montaged illustrations and stark, pithy text, is a bestselling modern classic.Īs Berger put it, we are visual animals who see before we learn to read and, even as adults, get our most basic orientation in the world with our eyes, which makes images extraordinarily powerful. Seeing Through Drawing: a Celebration of John Berger is on at the Mandell’s Gallery in Norwich until 26 August.J ohn Berger, who died on Monday, wrote and said a lot of smart things, but he will be remembered longest for his 1972 BBC television series and book Ways of Seeing. I feel like an interloper, but it was great to meet, in Paris in 1999, the man who cared so much about how we see. I have a confession to make: mine is one photograph in the show. Imagine what he would say now at a time when more photographs are being taken than ever before, but so few are being looked at.īerger also said that a “huge ocean of drawings” must have formed since the first marks were drawn on a cave wall many thousands of years ago. While they were filming, Berger talked about the vast number of pictures that had been taken since the invention of photography. Berger and Christie wrote to each other for many years. The Norwich show was the brainchild of artist Martin Battye and his good friend John Christie, who co‑directed Another Way of Telling, the BBC series based on Berger’s book on photography. The show includes more than 40 pieces and embraces many different styles, but strangely all of them look as if they could have come from the same caring, slow hand. There is something about a room filled with monochrome drawings that slows you down enough to enjoy the simple beauty of marks on paper. Most of the works were sent to Berger as gifts, often by his friends there is so much affection in the room. On show are pieces by Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Maggi Hambling and Berger’s son, Yves, who drew his father on his deathbed just as Berger had drawn his own father in 1976. “The latter stops time, arrests it, whereas drawing flows with it.” “Isn’t drawing the polar opposite of a photo?” Berger asked.
Now, to celebrate his life, a wonderful exhibition of drawings is taking place in Norwich. The late Booker-winning writer and art critic John Berger was the shop steward for photography he argued that it was an important way of seeing.