One of the concepts, perhaps the core idea of John Bergman’s Ways of Seeing is that the context and perception of a piece of art may be just as important as the work itself. In a sense, The Last Supper that we see is not the same that Da Vinci and his contemporaries saw- they had a different visual vocabulary than we modern viewers, and so would have had a different way of seeing it. Even the most carefully preserved painting will never be the same as it was when it was created: we can preserve an object, but we cannot preserve society’s position in relation to that object.

To some extent, modern art’s use of abstract visual forms sidesteps this problem. To “get” a painting like The Last Supper, you need to study Christianity, Renaissance symbolism and lighting techniques, know what perspective it was created and the significance of that perspective, and so on. To “get” a Rothko work, all you need is an eye (and perhaps a basic understanding of color theory) By eschewing any sort of setting or object that could grow outdated, abstract artists hoped to make universal paintings that could evoke emotional reaction in any viewer. I am not trying to say that no piece of modern art does not need context- indeed, Fountain would become pointless when removed from the context of an art gallery or museum – but I do think that abstract art is actually more comprehensible to everyone than more traditional art.

Why, then does modern art get derided by the masses who say, “My 3-year old could draw that!”. Again, it is a matter of context. If I hang up a Pollock in my house, people view it differently than if I place it on a pedestal in a museum. Museums have an atmosphere and a price that primes people to expect “high art”. And of one the ways in which most people define “high art” is the difficulty in producing it. Anyone can look at the Sistine Chapel or Michelangelo’s sculptures and know they required skill, finesse, and many hours of labor to produce. The same can’t be said of blobs of color or pictures of soup cans. But if these images were displayed in a less pretentious setting – say, on the street or on a bedroom wall – I think we all could see them in a way that would let us enjoy them.