PENGUIN Ways of Seeing

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 :)