However, for what the book does have to offer it is quite good. The book is divided into seven sections, four of which are text and three of which are pictorial essays. The essays are all focused upon the central theme, yet can be read separately. Each section deals with its own topic and there is very little overlap. John Berger does a very good job at describing the effect that images have upon the mind and the mood of the viewer. A lot of care is taken to explain these passages clearly and the examples that he uses are very effective at demonstrating his case.


WAYS of SEEdING confusion   January 13, 2001
 4 out of 19 found this review helpful

Critics such as Berger are harmful to the cause of art. His writing is totally incomprehensible. I teach art, and therefore would expect to know what he's talking about -- but I haven't a clue. Art critics need to stop writing for EACH OTHER and start to speak the language of the common person. No wonder people feel stupid when it comes to discussing art (modern art in particular) -- the critics speak in a language that is alien to most everyone except themselves.


Old, but still very, very true to our times.   October 12, 2000
 4 out of 7 found this review helpful

I purchased this book for a class I was taking in Visual Media and I have to say it's been one of the most enjoyable books I've read in college. It's short and John Berger speaks what I believe to be very true. We watched the accompanying shows in which Berger pretty much says what he says in this book (to better exemplify things). However you don't need to see those to understand this book. Berger dispels the myth's behind advertising in European / Western culture... that's what I got out of it.


Yes, it's becoming dated, but...   July 19, 2000
 12 out of 17 found this review helpful

After reading Berger's book, you should be able to fill in the blanks yourself.

Berger, of course, didn't forsee the internet- and the "democritiziationn of bandwidth," but, if you've read this book, you'd be well prepared to anticipate the suppression of "pirate broadcasting."

This book changed my perception- now whenever I go into an art museum (or watch PBS or Jerry Springer for that matter)I'm always looking for who benefits financially. Of course, the book's about painting mostly, but you can see the obvious parallels to pretty much any other form of artistic media- Berger's analysis applies in spades, for example, to Mappelthorpe's photography (funded not by the NEA, but, orignally, by wealthy patrons!)

"Mobil Masterpiece Theatre?" Ha! *That's* an oxymoron!


A classic that's becoming outdated   November 26, 1999
 136 out of 148 found this review helpful

Ways of Seeing is the book of a groundbreaking and brilliant TV series that Berger created with Mike Dibb in the 1970s. The book isn't quite as amazing as the series, but it's acquired canonical status anyway as Berger's most frequently set text on art and art criticism. Which is a pity, because while the impressive confidence of Berger's judgments was inspiring back then (Marina Warner and Michael Ondaatje have each paid tribute to it), time has passed over the last quarter of a century and the book is in danger of looking old-fashioned. The theory of desire, which Berger manages to popularise in a single succinct chapter, has been challenged, confirmed, turned upside-down and generally elaborated upon so much since the book was written that his version of it is now inadequate. Advertising is vastly more sophisticated now than it was in 1972 - the ads reproduced in the book, while perfectly representative of their time, are almost laughable in their blatant sexism and classism. (You wouldn't get away with them now, that's for sure.) But the account of the rise of oil painting is still persuasive, even if it lacks the cheek and mischievousness of the TV version. Readers expecting to find Berger's most incisive and complex criticism should look elsewhere, though, to The Sense of Sight or About Looking, because Ways of Seeing is essentially a popularisation of theories that have since become much more complex, and Berger's lapidary, no-argument tone is hardly applicable anymore. Somebody should release the series on video, then we'd get the same ideas in a more engaging and fascinating manner.