Question 1:

• Berger suggests that what we see ‘depends on habit and convention’ and is not, as we might think, simply natural or objective. He explains that if we look now at a 19^th century painting, we see it as it has never been seen before we bring to our viewing of it, our personal life experiences and the context in which it is viewed. Our understanding of what we’re seeing doesn’t always goes with what we’re seeing in front of us. We can attempt to capture what we see, reproducing or recreating it for others so that we can try to understand how to perceive the world. To do so is to create an image. “ An Image is a sight in which has been recreated or reproduced”. In this quote, we seen what John Berger is talking about “ A way of seeing”. It’s a brief copy of how the creator saw the world. Images can preserve things as they once were and preserve how their creator once saw their subject. What really makes images extremely powerful is its value or how much it costs.

Question 2:

• ‘The invention of the camera changed not only what we see but how we see it. It has even changed how we see the paintings of the past’. Berger explains that an original painting can only be seen in one place at a time, and often, paintings were created for display in a specific building. The camera means that we can now see a painting anywhere, in any size and it can be reproduced for any purpose. When we look at an image on our computer screens, say of a painting, we see it with reference to its new environment: we see it in our room, surrounded by our things, and it is placed in the context of our lives. The original painting, however, still exists and can be viewed in a different context. This context informs our viewing of the painting, just as its new position on our computer screen does. We understand an image or painting presented in a gallery as an original and as worthy of serious attention, simply because it is there. Berger says that such an image ‘is beautiful for that alone’. He says that the beauty of such a painting is dependent upon it being a genuine original. Its value as an original is a ‘substitute for what the painting lost when the camera made it reproducible’. In the context of a gallery, we see the painting as still and silent, which is impossible on a computer screen. Berger says that the ‘stillness and silence’ of a physical painting can be ‘very striking’. The video at this point is muted to try to copy the feeling of stillness and silence of an original painting. I was surprised to become consciously aware of just how much noise is generated by my computer, and how much movement could be seen on my screen in the flickering and tiny movements of light as I watched. To appreciate the stillness, Berger says, one has to view the original since even the turning of pages in a book creates movement.

Question 3:

• The reproduction of works of art changes their meaning. ‘The camera has multiplied possible meanings and destroyed the unique original meaning’. Berger explains that, with reproduction, meaning can be changed and a painting can be used by anyone to convey many different meanings. Often, reproductions are cropped, edited, or shown out of context allowing them to be mobilized in the service of an argument unrelated to their original meaning.