Andrew Zagelbaum

Professor Graff

The Arts in New York City

September 19^th 2012

Through Ways of Seeing, John Berger uses art to portray his inner thoughts and opinions of his surrounding world.  My take on the title of the book is that there is, in fact, multiple ways of seeing.  Yes, there’s the typical, using your vision to see what is directly happening in front of you, but there’s also so much more than that.  Art allows us to see not only what’s happening, but also what has already happened, or what will happen.  Art is both fiction and non-fiction.  We can see facts and true events, but you can also see opinions and feelings.  Only through art can you physically experience what another person may be thinking without being with that person.

In Ways of Seeing, you will find a chapter that consists of only pictures of women.  The first one, being a woman standing in a kitchen full of pots and pans.  This, I assume, is supposed to represent the over exaggerated view on what women are.  In the background of this, you can see pictures of other women who look to be more well off than the woman cooking, but it is assumed that the woman in the picture is a representation of most of the female population.

Next you’ll find a woman of class sitting in a car surrounded by people.  This picture, to me, represents the potential of a woman.  Where as in the last picture you see an average woman surrounded by those better off than her, here you can find a high end woman surrounded by those beneath her.  Just outside her car window, you can see two women just waiting to catch a glimpse of her.

Moving forward, we find two naked women with a very plastic sense to them.  I’m still unsure whether these women are real or mannequins, but regardless, this picture shows the potential beauty of an artist.  Behind the two women, a figure can be seen and while it is unclear what he/she may be doing, it seems as though he/she is painting something.  Perhaps he/she is trying to capture the beauty of these two women and represent it in a picture of his/her own.

Later, we have a woman in an exquisite dress, capturing the eyes of three high class men.  Here, we see not only the potential beauty of a woman, but the power behind this beauty that she holds.  Three men are distracted by the figure that lay in front of them, and yet this contradicts the first picture we explored.  The woman is no longer a figure of work and labor, but now she is above the men, capturing every last piece of their attention.

Lastly, we have two pictures of women side by side.  One of which is standing the rain, while the other sit there having her feet pampered.  To me, this shows two extremes of a female presence.  While in the first picture, we see a very natural, rough portrayal of a woman; the second picture shows us a woman beyond the elements.  Both are clearly beautiful women, but for different reasons.  In regard to the woman in the rain, she has natural beauty.  She can be seen as a self made woman, one who reaches a certain potential without the help of others.  The other woman, however, can be seen as a woman coming from riches.  The beauty she holds is more of a clean look.

Through out these various pictures, we were able to both compare and contrast different women in what they represent.  Without physically seeing these women in person, we were able to have a grasp on what their life styles are like.