Opinions of seeing
John Berger wrote an article entitled "Ways of Seeing". In this article of his, he imposes his opinion of "works of art", what constitutes a work of art. He also talks about reproductions of art. His perception of reproductions is that they pervert the original piece, and that by reproduction the beauty and value of the piece is taken away, that the piece is not the same because it does not represent anymore what the artist originally intended. I do not agree with Berger. I do not see reproductions of art to be perversions of the original, and I also do not agree with his outline for a "work of art". Reproduction allows people to see something they might never have, they allow the artist to gain more exposure, whereas if there had been no reproduction, only a handful of people might have seen it. As to what a "work of art" is, that is something I believe to be totally up to the observer. What one may perceive to be beautiful, an opinion perhaps brought on by personal experiences, another may not see the same way. A work of art I truly enjoy and respect is Salvador Dali's "Table with Landscape". The joy of the painting for me comes from the intricacies that Dali weaves into the painting. The painting has many levels
Before in this essay, I referred to Dali's painting as a "work of art". What is a "work of art"? Who determines what is or is not a "work of art"? Berger talks about "works of art", mainly when he refers to common paintings that most people recognize by name. Is this to imply that a piece of art has to be well known in order to be considered a "work of art"? What about before these "works of art" were famous. They were merely canvases filled with paint, the same as they are today, yet at the time when they were produced, they were not immediately considered revolutionary and inspirational for their time. It took people to who had the means to view these paintings to give them such a distinction. Once again, I will repeat, people who had the means. The poor people of the time could not afford such luxuries to view pieces of art, so a painter obtained his praise from the high class solely, and only once the painting was famous enough to gain exposure could the lower class see it and make their own judgements, too late of course since the piece had already been dubbed a "work of art" and was revered. The fact that the piece was considered a to it, a succession of realizations occur if the painting is studied long enough. When I first saw this painting, I saw a cup on a table, with a lot of scenery in the background. I do not consider myself someone who appreciates art in any particular form, so at first all I saw was a bland table with a cup on it. When I looked closer however, I began to see much more to the picture. The neck of the cup seemed to be part of a face, the mouth and nose of the face lying in the table. The scenery that I had previously disregarded as unimportant revealed itself to be much more. At the very top of the painting was a mountain landscape, and below it, mixed into the scenery, standing behind the cup on the table, was a dog! "A dog?" I said. Why on earth would Dali put a dog in his painting, and moreover, why would we make it such a concealed part of the painting. I did not understand at first Dali's reasoning for this strange painting, but as soon as I let go of my confusions, the painting started to make sense to me. I no longer cared what the painting had meant to Dali when he was painting it, but rather I wa
Some common words found in the essay are:
Table Landscape, John Berger, cup table, painting own, painting means, understand painting, opinion art, own reasons, painting understand, mass ideas thrown, painting own reasons, painting understand painting, interpretation painting, own ideas mean, originally intended, painting meant, huge mass ideas,
Approximate Word count = 1532
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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