berger and tompkins

A detailed Summary of berger and tompkins

John Berger's writing "Ways of Seeing" is a look into the world of art. Throughout his composition, he gives his opinions on various topics about art. Jane Tompkins essay "Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History" is a look into the world of history. Within her essay, Tompkins discusses her views on the quest of finding truth in history. She uses terms such as "relativism" ,the understanding that man or woman can never find the absolute truth in facts, and "epistemological quandary" , a predicament where in her case she could not find the correct knowledge and facts to interpret and learn the factual information she desired to possess. These terms help to develop her way of finding the historical truth when there are many different accounts of history.

Reproductions occur in many different aspects of life. Two of these such aspects are art and history, the areas of expertise of Berger and Tompkins respectively. Berger believes that non-exact reproductions of art are of great

value while Tompkins believes that there is little value if there is a non-exact reproduction or recount of history.

John Berger ,an art critic as well as an author, is a proponent of reproducing art in different

This quote explains Berger's feelings on the reproduction of art in our time. He illustrates to the reader that reproductions give the art viewer a more specific angle on a art piece. By doing this the art pursuer can understand the piece on a greater level making the original piece more comprehensible. Because of this, Berger makes the assertion that reproduction enhances the understanding of the original piece thus making reproduction justified and a worthy thing to accomplish.

history is told incorrectly because the concepts of the "reproductioner" will now be thought of as what the message is supposed to be. Much like the inaccurate accounts of history can be thought of as fact even though it is not.

but the resulting interpretation that occur are diluted and are not the complete truth. Because of this, the historical account that historians write have be read with relativism in mind. If the reader does not do this the person can be thinking that the history that they are reading is the absolute historical truth. Believing in false facts can lead to telling and teaching other people these false facts thus creating a domino effect of lies.

Unlike art, history is not something to be interpreted, it is straight facts. Art is created by an artist to convey a message or a theme to his or her audience. I believe that history should not be explored ,rather, that in an ideal world, history is known and there is no need to hunt for it. On the other hand, art is to be interpreted by people. However, reproduction can lead to many of the original artists ideas and themes to be left out. A person could be mislead by what the "reproductioner" has put before them. Berger says, "Uniqueness of the o

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Approximate Word count = 1148
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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