Ways of Seeing

A must read for artists and art lovers. Literally shows the ways to look at art. A gem to keep. Small lightweight handy book. Full of fascinating perspectives and visuals.

Highly suggest getting the hardcover or the colour print copy, the essays however far exceed justifying the price for Mass Market Paperback if just reading the book is your goal. I did not expect this to pack such a strong punch in such a small book.

Gives new perspectives.

However, the bbc documentary of the same books could be more appealing, rather than reading the book. As the book is black and white, the colored photographs are not visible. Also the quality of the photographs are not good. In the documentary the author has decribed in more details with simultaneous photographs or paintings. Essesnce of misic, which is another important aspect of ways of seeing that the author could describe in the video, can not be explained in the book.

I loved reading this book. It is an introduction for amateurs trying to understand art. It primarily talks about literally "seeing" how we see what's before us and how what we see affects us. It also says a great deal about oil paintings, their impact and their evolution, everything is introductory not in detail. Nevertheless a good place to start.

Book is about prespective. And it will change yours, once you read it. It’s about how we interpret art and how we ought to depend on our sensibilities in interpreting it.

Not good print neither good paper quality

Typical Mass Market Paperback

Great book, fast shipping. Thank you

Especially since I think I was supposed to read it in Art School thirty years ago. In fact I thought I had read it, and I was just buying it to show a student. Read it myself. Slow going at the beginning.

Ways of Seeing von John Berger ist schnell lesbar und hat mir echt die Augen geöffnet. Er erklärt, wie wir Kunst und Medien wahrnehmen und manipuliert werden, ohne kompliziert zu werden. Besonders das Kapitel über den „male gaze“ war stark – regt zum Nachdenken an. Ist jetzt nicht die absolute Bibel, aber definitiv ein Buch, das man mal gelesen haben sollte, wenn man Kunst und ihre Wirkung besser checken will. Klare Empfehlung!

I had been on the lookout for a good book on visual culture, and after a long search , I decided to buy this one, as it is a classic. A classic in the non-fiction genre means that latest books on the subject have stolen the main themes from the classic text-which may be very short-and then added verbosity and lots of pictures to make thick and expensive books. This book may seem like a small book full of pictures, but it propounds big ideas. For me it was a quick read, I finished it in a few hours, possibly more so due to the fact that the main ideas were thoughts already scattered in my head; Berger compiled them, stated them way more eloquently, and then some. As is often the case, this book took me back to Qur'anic verses, as it seemed to be tied to the main themes of the Islamic scripture. The section on the female nude, could very well have been a summary of a dissertation on the veil in Islam. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this review. Having just read Chomsky's "How the world works," it was quite intriguing to read Berger making the same connections of capitalism with envy, covetousness and social apathy. Just like Chomsky, his identification of capitalism as a roadblock to democracy was also equally intriguing. It was almost the same points being stated, except that this time the thesis was based on marketing and the visual arts. (less)

i got this size to carry it around but should have gotten one in a bigger size. there are b&w photos inside and they are too small to analyze in order to understand Berger's point(s). in short this size is not right if you want to enjoy this book. be warned :)