Ways of Seeing

This week we read an excerpt from John Berger's Ways of Seeing. The essay explored the unique way in which sight positions us in the world, how images position us in relation to their subjects, and how the meanings of images are affected by their context. I came away from the reading with several questions:

1. Berger writes about tack boards in bedrooms that combine reproductions, original artwork, and writings in such a way that "all the images belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it." Is this a good, perhaps even ideal way of displaying and experiencing art? Is it noble to give a seven year old's drawing the same importance as a photograph of a Vermeer "masterpiece"? Is it sacrilege?

2. In the excerpt, Berger uses Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows to exemplify the effect of captions on our perception of an image. When we are told beneath the picture that it was the last painted before the artist's suicide, the meaning of the image immediately changes. For me, it became more haunting and I looked more closely and reverently than I previously had. Is this ability for our perceptions to be affected by a description of the background to a work something to be ashamed of or merely to accept? I believe that it is good to appreciate works of art based on their own merits, but is my perception after having read the caption not just as valid as my perception before the fact?

3. I like that Berger explores how reproductions alter the reception of a work, but never condemns it. Besides the fact that it would make him a hypocrite, his lack of a judgment on the effects reproductions have leaves us to question it for ourselves. Is it a bad thing when a reproduction isolates a part of an image or presents it to us in a specific order and context or is it just another artist creating a new work by pointing at a specific aspect of another work?