In the words of John Berger, “every image embodies a way of seeing” and “images are more precise and richer than literature”. In essence, both the article Looking at Art and the book “Ways of Seeing” challenge the way that people view art and the different perspectives that make looking at art so enticing. Both authors take note of the fact that how a piece of art is viewed is mostly dependent on who views it and at what point they look at it- if it is a reproduction or the original. Different people interpret art differently and that’s the interesting part about perspective. Burger also mentions that, “the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” showing that art is always open to different interpretation.
In the book, Ways of Seeing, the author shows that a picture can simply record a view of some sort, but an artist analyzes it and picks out the details that he or she finds interesting. Burger explains that, “the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe”. Alice Chase, however, states that people view art as, “what I see is not true and I will paint things as I know them to be, not as they look”, so there is an element of a personal perspective on art. She explains that perspective satisfies the casual glance but is not scientific. Consequently Burger agrees and states that, “we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves”.
Both authors seem to mention landscapes in their works. Alice Chase describes that for different countries and people of various ethnicities, landscapes are viewed differently. For example, for the Chinese, “color came from variation in the blackness of the ink”, while for the Italians, “landscape was just as important as the action” going on in the painting. Perspective also depends on the time period. For example, medieval thinkers saw God in every detail of nature that the landscape of his own country became a worthy setting for a religious subject. The landscape also brought out a sense of nationalism in the people of specific nations to where the paintings belonged. Both authors mention how difficult it is to draw things such as the sky and distance in general Burger has a different take on perspective. He states that, “when we ‘see’ a landscape, we situate ourselves in it”. In essence, however, both authors show that landscape is a way to inform people of what is going on and the importance of the landscape to the artists. Berger does however warn that today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before and we actually perceive it in a different way. He expresses a sense of worry that Chase does not portray that art is being translated and not as valued and studied as before, largely in fact due to cameras and reproductions of original works.
The concept of cameras and photography seems to be a prevalent concern in both works. Alice Chase mentions that an artist uses his eye as much as a photographer uses a camera lens. The artist work is an expansion of man’s thoughts and feelings. Unlike Chase however, Berger argues that photographs are not, as often assumed, a mechanical record-they have meaning. The photographer selects a specific sight from infinity of other possible sights. The photographer’s way of seeing is reflected in choice of subject. Chase states that a photograph is merely in an effort to document a certain view. Berger contradicts this view by stating that the invention of the camera changed the way men saw, but also changed the way in which men saw paintings painted long before the camera was invented.
Ultimately, although the authors disagree on many perspectives of art such as the value of photos, as opposed to actual paintings and the perspectives of landscapes for the different ethnic backgrounds, they agree on the notion that art can be viewed differently depending on the person viewing it and what time period the art is being viewed in. As Berger says, “perspective makes the single eye the Centre of the visible world. They also agree that art evokes a certain ownership or nationalism in the artist because as Berger says the landowners felt “the pleasure of seeing themselves depicted as landowners and this pleasure was enhanced by the ability of oil paint to render their land in all its substantiality. Chase mentions that this same ownership was felt towards the place of the landscape and nationalism arises.