Before reading The Ways of Seeing and A Short Guide to Writing About Art, the idea of going to a museum voluntarily to look at art on the walls was of no interest to me whatsoever. The only times I went to museums were for school projects, where I was forced to look at pieces and jot down as many notes as I could as we moved throughout the rooms. I hated it. I gained nothing from it because a) I was young and b) the purpose of my visit was to take notes, not to admire the art, as Berger’s and Barnet’s books wish we all would do.
What I found most interesting in both readings is how everyone sees art differently and how context matters. Art is really like ink blots – you see it, and you think about what you see. Everyone sees different meanings, different beauty in the strokes, different color patterns – anything. Some of this changes, though, when given context. Berger talked about an interesting topic: context. He mentions that when a painting suddenly has text, or is around other paintings depicting similar things, the image you look at suddenly changes and can transform in meaning in your mind. I understand this. It’s like posting a picture to Facebook without saying where you are and what you’re doing. Anyone looking at the picture would think “oh she is at a concert” or “oh she is in central park” etc. Context gives meaning to art.
I’m weird when it comes to visual art. I am a huge fan of Banksy and Space Invader, both visual artists. What they do, in my eyes, is genius, and so well thought out. I love looking at their work and breaking them down and thinking about what they are trying to say (Banksy, especially, has A LOT to say all the time!). I have just never found the same love for the fine arts. Hopefully these two reads will allow me to feel the same emotions towards the new art I will see as I feel from the aforementioned artists.
In the reading, I also learned something so obvious, but something that most people probably do not think about. Berger says, “Original paintings are silent and still in a sense that information never is.” He mentions how reproductions lose a lot of the original beauty because it’s harder to break down the image piece by piece and truly examine it. It can also, unfortunately, end up on mugs, posters, t-shirts etc. – the meaning can be so washed away that the art just loses all meaning. Going to the museum and seeing real paintings in the flesh could change my entire perspective (Berger was big on perspective) of various art works I see.
Thinking about Berger’s and Barnet’s opinions and suggestions, I think my trip to the MoMA will be much more meaningful to me. I will hopefully see art in a different way and I’ll spend time looking at pieces and mentally breaking them down to try and determine the author’s intentions and to appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into the work of art. Although, seeing with an innocent eye is very hard, since Barnet brought up the idea of a constructionist view (which is certainly how I react to art), I can go in being aware of the right way to look at art. Will I be able to? I don’t know. But I am enlightened on the topic now so I will try my best. Rather than going as a huge school group, I will have time to appreciate and admire what I see and this will ultimately make my visit more productive and pleasurable.
