Art criticism is a respected and also difficult field to master, but John Berger stands out as a recent example of someone who thrived in this profession. In the 1940's Berger began painting and later taught art classes, eventually publishing numerous essays critiquing various works and espousing his personal beliefs about how artwork should be viewed (John Berger Biography 1). ... This quote from the first chapter of "The Ways of Seeing" perfectly captures Berger's stance on Art elitism in today's society. ... Berger goes on to discuss the effect reproductions have h...

• Word Count: 2324
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In 1972 John Berger, an English novelist, painter, and art critic, broadcast a four part BBC series titled 'Ways of seeing', in which he explores the relationship between language and perspective. In the text accompanying the series, Berger opens with 'Seeing comes before words. ... An example of this comes from a popular Berger quote – 'Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. ... This creates an interesting dialogue between the art, non-art objects and the space they share (see fig. 1, 2 and 3). ... However, many complications ari...

• Word Count: 1257
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

It was not simply about inspection and representation of space and form but furthermore an evolution of language, a pictorial language that was specified to art. ... As Berger further comments, "Cubism is the interaction between the unambiguous signs made on the surface of the picture and the changing reality which they stand in for." Although primarily concerned with the art of form, Cubism was still secondarily an art of representation. ... The marked signs of these objects - the staves of the music, the strings, handle and sound-holes of the violin no longer belong to these individual obj...

• Word Count: 1529
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate