John Berger's way of seeing

A detailed Summary of John Berger's way of seeing


The ways the image and texts are interpreted are based on interpreter's perception, belief, past history and interpretation of events. In John Berger's book, 'Ways of Seeing,' the writer explores the way we view and interpret the art. The message provided by the writer relates to interpretation of the message. In the book (both in text and image) there is a message about the relationship of men and women and presence of their power and position.

Berger starts his essay with: "It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it" (Berger, 7). In the very beginning of his essay, Berger implies to his readers that it is actually seeing which develops our thoughts and meanings. Using these thoughts and meanings, we interpret our surrounding with words. This very clearly underlines that we describe what we see and what we make of what we see.

John Berger's central insight - that "the way we see things is structured by what we know or what we believe" is an insight into how Berger views and acknowledges the fact that what we interpret an image, text or an event according to our knowledge and believe.


She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another." (46)

cation of Berger's statement that what we view is based on our perception, is in the first chapter itself where he mentions, "Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing." (11).

"Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of.

Berger further solidifies this relationship of the power of presence of men and women by drawing on the interpretation of the presence of women. "A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.

If we take a look at the image on page Pg 126 of the gathering of men and women, we find out the same relationship o

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Approximate Word count = 854
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts

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