It is not only our ability to select what we see in and of an object, but what our knowledge, background, education and upbringing has contributed to our understanding of such an object.įor instance, a gardening tool shown to an infant will have no meaning or recognition as to purpose when that infant has not seen anyone using such an implement. We cannot describe any object unless we have seen it, or an image of it.īut it is what we see that determines our description of it, or what we see in an image. Here is a selection of YouTube videos featuring Berger, including Ways of Seeing (1972).The opening words of John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” are “Seeing comes before words”, with the implication that the child sees and recognises before it can express what it sees in words.Īny one of us has to be able to see something before describing it in words. I don’t want to’, because those years at university form a whole way of thinking.” Lots of people were pushing me and I said, ‘No. “This is not a prescription for others, but when I look back on my life I think it’s very significant I never went to a university. And a completely different respect associated with danger,” he said. Respect to do with ceremony – what happens when you visit the House of Lords. At 16, I went down a coal mine in Derbyshire and spent a day on the coal face – just watching the miners. Speaking to Kate Kellaway, Berger explained his interest in labor and social issues. “The connection between the human condition and labour is frequently forgotten, and for me was always so important. Rest in power John Berger (1926-2017) 💔 They write: “ Ways of Seeing was a Marxist reply to another TV series, Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, which studiously avoided economic, social, and ideological aspects of art, so that art history emerged as a narrative of isolated men of genius.” The popularity of Ways of Seeing on BBC had a profound impact on Western culture. Some, like academics Jan Bruck and John Docker, see the series and book as a response to another widely seen BBC series by Kenneth Clark in 1969. His father was a Hungarian émigré who was very much affected by the First World War, in which he served as an infantry officer and was awarded the Military Cross. His mother, Miriam, was once a suffragette and hailed from Bermondsey, south London.

He was born in Stoke Newington, north London.

Walter benjamin ways of seeing