John Bergers Ways of Seeing Summary Commentary

John Berger’s â€Å"Ways of Seeing† is a short commentary that seems to be about how different classes of people perceive art, how its meaning has changed through the ages, and how the introduction of technology has affected it. Berger seems to be an extremely controversial art critic, based off opinions of him that range from â€Å"stimulating† to â€Å"preposterous†. He has been praised numerous times, yet condemned just as much. His writings can seem extremely complex and difficult, even cryptic at times; but trudging through his works can yield many fascinating nuggets of truth. My first reading of â€Å"Ways of Seeing† barely provided me with any information, but subsequent readings finally gave up some of Berger’s most interesting points, such as his†¦show more content†¦Berger sums up his point by describing the meaning of a widely copied painting as â€Å"no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.† (Berger 116) A disagreement the opponents of this argument will likely bring up is the apparent faultiness of the logic used to deduce that the mass production of art copies actually takes away from the true meaning of art. One could say that without the millions of copies of any given painting, no one would know about it except the most privileged of art patrons. Is this really the case though? In a world where copies of great art are NOT widely distributed, would any painting carry the prestige that great art carries nowadays? Why are some paintings as â€Å"hyped-up† as they are now? Perhaps it is because since birth, we have been exposed to copies of these creations and trained by modern society to simply accept them as â€Å"holy relics† as Berger would say (Berger 119). Items only have as much value as society decides it to have, and we as a society have decided that great art is worth countless millions, too valuable to have the originals accessible to laymen. In an alternate universe, perhaps one could look at the â€Å"Mona Lisa† without staring through bulletproof glass and guards, and bask in the meaning of it like Leonardo Da Vinci intended. It seems like the way to get art to the masses is to cut down the hype. The reasoning behind this was hard for me toShow MoreRelatedRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 Pagesto face a great deal of resistance. What Edmonds manages to do here is offer us a way to appreciate the importance of Rastafarianism as a religious phenomenon that is consistent with much of what happens when religious groups and movements grow and develop. Indeed, there is a remarkable logic to the development of Rasta that deï ¬ es the notion that it is a movement of the insane and the misguided. Given the way in which Rastafarianism has arrived in the world, it is useful when someone is able