Images and Words A Look at Ways of Seeing
“Seeing comes before words.” A direct and clear statement opens the first of the seven essays in the book “Ways of Seeing”. Like most of Berger’s statements in these essays, expressed either through images or through words, it is as mind-stirring as it is simple. ... But nevertheless his words manage to come across and provoke the critical reader. The issues he has included in his essay deal not only with one’s own way of seeing, but also challenge the truthfulness of what one sees, and further more, of what one is shown. ... And in this essay knowledge is blamed for the unfixed relationship between seeing and words, since it affects the way we perceive the surrounding world. ... Images are actually recreations of what someone has seen, whether it’s an artist, a photographer or a cameraman. They are themselves a way of seeing. It becomes apparent, that these images have actually been influenced by certain facts and emotions and in turn they themselves have an influence on others. And even though one’s appreciation of an image depends on their own way of seeing, it can be easily manipulated, even distorted. There’s a great difference between the ways a person would perceive a certain image if they didn’t know anything about it and if they had some, even the slightest information about how it was created or who created it. Words once again interfere with the image, giving it different qualities, ones a person wouldn’t have seen in the first place. ... He states that these images have been ascribed a remoteness, an almost religious status, so that the past can be made more obscure.