Ways of Seeing

Ways of Seeing by John Berger introduces a lot of fascinating points about how we see things and our individual perceptions of them. The first point that stood out to me was in the beginning when he states, "We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice". I think this is a really interesting point, and one that I can relate to based on my future profession as an audiologist. When you look at something, say for example a painting or a portrait in a museum, you look at it, but you have to make the choice to actually see it. The same goes for hearing; you can hear someone, but you must actively choose to listen and understand. This is something that us as students can relate to because we are presented with so much information and stimuli, therefore we must make the choice to take it in and use it, instead of going through the motions. 

Later on, Berger discusses more about our perceptions of artwork and how we see things in the present versus in the past. He states, "Today we see art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way". I think this is a really interesting point, because today, our perceptions are different based on our environment around us and what we are exposed to in our culture. Artists of the past create their work based on their own intentions and perceptions to how the world was back then. How can we truly understand how the artist intended their original work if our perceptions are completely different? I suppose the point is, that we are not supposed to. The same goes for other theories and opinions in our lives. We think differently about certain issues because of how our world had culturally changed. 

I also really enjoyed reading about how the invention of the camera changed the game in terms of seeing things based on perspective. Before the camera, the way we saw things was dependent on where we were and when. Berger states that "the invention of the camera changed the way men saw. The visible came to mean something different to them. This was immediately reflected in painting". So not only did the invention of the camera introduce different perspectives in art, but it also influenced the way artists composed paintings, and the perspectives from which they created them