WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 2/4

[Niveastylingel]

It's nice to see the National Gallery again, it remembers me that there are almost no English painters, apart from the portraitists. Da Vinci and Van Gogh seem to have made much more into one painting. I may have been distracted by the excessive amount of gold worshipping though.

[erichargrave12]

John Berger's book and television series is seminal and not leftwing propaganda. He raises many important points like how famous works of art have become ordinary and everyday objects as they are replicated everywhere from postcards to mugs. Famously, he also pointed out that some paintings such as portraits shouldn't be so highly revered as it is just rich people of the past showing of how wealthy they were. But that is common sense, not propaganda. Read the book and you'll never see the art

[erichargrave12]

@Fauxann The lines he refers to is the way that standard definition television is shown on an old Tube TV. ThIs is why if you ever took a photo or tried to video what was on an old tv screen you would see the black lines.

[johnzbarleycorn]

John Berger's Ways of Seeing is replete with ridiculous untruths and left-wing propaganda.

It is the most absurd and poisonous book I have read in years.

In it he applies fatuous theories from Levi Strauss and other left wing "thinkers" and sneers in the typically infantile, 70s, Dave Spart type of left wing manner that was in vogue at the time.

Pure garbage.

[redbeast86]

I twought i taw a puwddy cat!

[ASPKILLS]

@fauxann look up interlacing

[Fauxann]

4:19 "The lines on your screen are never still."

.... what lines?! xD

[kaidoctor]

Carlos Santana at 4:50 hahahha

[tmgreenhalgh]

great doc.

[modomnoc1010]

Semiotics is alive and well!

[suddenlyitsobvious]

For all we and Berger and the museum itself know, the Leonardo he's looking at might be a fake and the real one hanging in some bigshot Russian art dealer's home...

[RonAlmeida]

@suddenlyitsobvious There's more chance it is in an Americans house.

[uncompromising34]

jason king undercover?

great doc anyway

[WeAreAllSlaves1]

I think with regards to what walther bejamin is saying is the art of mechanical reproduction is a good thing and berger is disagreeing with him. This is not a good or bad thing its just how we see individualy and the same argue that dominates high and low culture spills over into everything. Its all personal preference. The preference is dominated by weatlh

[ronhelf]

1. The show was on BBC 2 back in the 70s. That might tip off something about where Berger is from

2. Berger is, of course, drawing on Walter Benjamin. That might tip off something about where he is coming from theoretically and methodologically.

3. Berger is saying something important. Don't, however, let me keep you from living the uninterrogated life. Put on that happy face and smile like someone who just had a lobotomy.

[rosie5166]

i have to listen to this every monday morning, i hate berger and was that the only shirt available in the 70s.

[thaitanium12]

In my next life I want to be a fucking art critic, beats the shit out of working for a living.

[rongenman]

I have enjoyed all of the episodes. I sell oil paintings and enjoy my work. I do not paint them, I just stretch them and sell them. I am not sure about his accent however, I am certain he is not from Alabama, USA. I feel he could write a few songs for Pink Floyd, also.

Ron, USA

[bovinebeast2]

It depends, he might actually have a speech impediment, but this kind of sound actually is quite common in quite a few varieties of RP.

[thibaulthalpern]

Where in the UK is his accent from? There are some Britons who have a funny way of saying the letter "R". It's almost as if they're lisping.

[mooshaa82]

I am sure his mother tongue is french.

[thibaulthalpern]

Er...no. He's a Briton grew up in Hackney, London, I found out.

[aloysiustheteddy]

Like Jonathan Ross? XD

[thibaulthalpern]

Yes, a bit like Jonathan Ross. Is that a particular accent from the Hackney area of London? It really sounds almost like lisping. John Berger's is more intense than Jonathan Ross'.

[bovinebeast2]

It's a very traditional educated British accent. A Hackney accent is very different.

[thibaulthalpern]

Is that right? It certainly doesn't sound like proper Received Pronunciation (aka Queen's English) because of the slurring or lisping of the "r". For example, for the word "rock" (@ around 0:53) Berger pronounces it "woh-ocks" as opposed to "roh-ocks".

You don't hear lisping of "r's" back when BBC announcers were required to use received pronunciation.

[crazyclive]

@thibaulthalpern Then you've obviously not watched any of Sue Lloyd-Roberts' BBC reports, then...

[OzSetgel]

Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly!

[thibaulthalpern]

You got it!! That's how it sounds like :)

[Juxtatype]

@OzSetgel Funniest thing I've read today!

[faunflynn]

@OzSetgel Oh you awe awefull !

[kfarm2001]

Berger's work has survived the fashion of postmodernism.

[Bc2ast]

Depends on your definition. Post-modernism is really a double edged sword. Context is the main idea. Silence or verbosity. Ignore it for the local or spin it till the multiples feedback and cancel out all others.

[electricsugarcube]

quiet down normie commenting below, this is amazing!

[festilina]

Can you buy this series on DVD anywhere; and if not, why not?!

[ronhelf]

Can you buy the DVD? No.

Why not? No idea, It is criminal that it is not available. Presumably the BBC doesn't think there is a market for it (pun intended). Civilisation, which Ways of Seeing was a rejoinder to, to some extent, is available.

[lexo30]

Great programme. Berger is the best kind of thinker, not scared of making bold statements, so even when you disagree with him you at least know what you are disagreeing with. He still writes books but we could use someone like him on TV these days, talking about this stuff. It's all so wishy-washy now.

[chashardy123]

Wow - I remember these confusing and self righteous times.