Ways of Seeing Essay Questions

Explain the Renaissance idea of perspective. What is the inherent contradiction in this idea? When and why did this convention begin to change?

During the Renaissance, the belief developed that reality could be represented most faithfully by drawing the world as if it converged on a single point on the horizon. This created the illusion of perspectival space, giving two-dimensional paintings and drawings the illusion of depth. Essentially, this means that the whole world converges on the eye of the spectator who beholds a painting. However, this is fraught with contradiction: the position of the spectator feels godlike, as the world appears to exist to furnish their perception, yet they are necessarily fixed in one place, unlike an omniscient or truly all-powerful god. Once the camera was invented, the idea that perspective realistically rendered the world began to change, as it became apparent that images also have a temporal dimension, which the conventions of perspective do nothing to capture.

Describe how representations of women throughout art history have reinforced their marginalization.

As Berger posits, the fundamental difference between men and women's presence in the world is that women are constantly asked to survey themselves, simultaneously perceiving their images of themselves as they perceive the world around them, while men's perception, judgment, and action is turned outward towards the world. This is because of the misogynistic belief that women can be reduced to the qualities that they project on the surface; or, to rephrase this, that women's personalities and values can be read from their appearances. Berger states this difference concisely by noting that "men act" while "women appear." This has been reinforced by the tradition of the female nude, which depicted women as passive receptacles for the spectator's sexual gaze, reduced and typified to a series of desirable features that exist for the viewer's projection of a fantasy. This representational tradition denies women any attributes beyond what can be seen on the surface, reinforcing the idea that their entire being resides in their appearance.

What is the relationship between envy and glamour? How is it employed in advertising?

According to Berger, advertisements work by encouraging us to envy a vision of our future selves, which we assume will be happier because we are enjoying a new product. Thus, it could be said, ads manufacture glamour: glamour is distinct from wealth, beauty, or respect in the sense that it is by definition the state of being envied. Since ads always refer to a hypothetical past or future, they operate on envy, locating happiness as perpetually outside the present.

How is oil painting related to private property?

Oil painting, especially in the traditional way it was employed in Europe between 1500 and 1900, is noted for its lustrous, textured quality that makes the objects it depicts appear almost real. The sense of tangibility that it creates encourages the viewer to want to hold its objects, which extends into a desire to possess them. In this sense, as Berger puts it, oil painting reduces everything to the equality of objects. It posits that the only value of an object is its materiality, a point of view that upholds capitalist property relations: its luminous, detailed representations of expensive objects imply that it is good to acquire private property and luxurious consumer goods. Thus, these paintings help prop up their owners' sense of self-worth, reassuring them that property ownership is virtuous.

How does reproduction change an image?

Although a perfect reproduction of an image might look exactly the same as the original, there's something ontologically different about the fact that the original is no longer unique. Before mechanical reproduction, images only existed in the specific contexts for which they were created, meaning they were often only seen by a select few people. Reproduction makes it possible for images to be re-printed an disseminated widely, reaching a wider viewership and becoming interpreted more diversely. However, their meaning can also change based on how they are reproduced: they can be cropped, accompanied by text, or commented on in ways that influence their interpretation, making them even more distinct from the original. The original's meaning also changes, as an artificial sense of holiness is often instated to compensate for the loss of uniqueness: we are told that seeing the original Mona Lisa should inspire some sense of awe that transcends simply the painting's historical or monetary value, akin to religiosity or inexplicable metaphysical value.