Summary
Chapter 6 is the final essay in the book to use only images. The first spread shows us three paintings: Europe Supported by Africa and America, Pity, and Mildew Blighting Ears of Corn. All appear to be oil paintings of various styles. In the first, three nude females stand together, with the lightest-skinned woman in front, held up by the other two. Below that, in Pity, one figure looks down at another, apparently dead, from amidst a sea of abstract figures resembling both waves and horses. One painting dominates the opposite page: two figures, more abstract than most of what we've seen before, surrounded by a series of swirls rather than a distinct background.
On the next page, an oil painting of a wealthy white woman being dressed by two black women—ostensibly servants—appears above another oil painting of a slave auction. In the second painting, slaves are being sold on one side of the auction house while paintings are being sold on the other. Across from these images, we see two portraits of noble-looking white figures being assisted by black people, and a portrait of two black men below that.
The next spread contains only two images, one on each page. Both appear to be portraits of children, depicted from the waist up. The first child looks distraught, gazing uncomfortably up at the viewer. The child in the second portrait averts his gaze, looking happily off into the distance. Both children are white.
The following two pages are populated by several oil paintings of domestic scenes: a family at the table, women in the kitchen, a man in a bedroom, and a cluster of figures leaned over a pot, either cooking or alchemizing. For the first time in the book, images spill across both pages, severed in the middle by the fold of the book's spine.
The next page is full of oil paintings of animals. The six paintings on the left-hand side primarily depict household pets; the four on the right show horses. The image on the top right is the only one without animal subjects; in it, a noble-looking family is painted against the backdrop of a luxurious garden (which ostensibly belongs to them).
The following spread includes numerous paintings of diverse subjects matter. The top two paintings on the left-hand page show crowded scenes of nobility from two different historical periods: one depicting a decadent Roman feast, the other, a Parisian salon. Below that are two smaller portraits of women: one noblewoman depicted in wealthy dress, and one nude female reclining into the ocean as a mostly-submerged male figure reaches up at her. The top of the right-hand page features two paintings of nude women, one entitled Witches Sabbath, and the other The Temptation of St. Anthony. These titles hint at the fact that the women in each painting are engaged in "immoral" acts—witchcraft and seduction. Below those, there's an image of Psyche's Bath, a nude woman reflected in the pool below her, and La Fortune. Because these images are so small, it's difficult to make out the paintings' exact subject matter, but there appears to be a naked woman on the left-hand side, and the wispy spots of grey that surround her suggest that she may be on fire.
Analysis
Right off the bat, it's necessary to mention that all the paintings in this essay appear to be oil paintings. With this in mind, they should be considered through the lens of Berger's analysis in Chapter 5, specifically the paradigm in which traditional oil painting reinforces the capitalist values of wealth accumulation and material possession.
The first painting in this essay depicts three nude female figures. Berger's analysis from Chapter 3 applies quite presciently here: all three face frontally towards the viewer, yet their gazes are either bashfully averted or coyly angled subtly towards them. In this sense, they mirror the conventions of female nudes that Berger described earlier: their positioning centers the painting onto the eye of the spectator, allowing a (presumably male) viewer to cast himself into the painting's narrative and imagine himself as the recipient of sexual pleasure. Interestingly, however, this painting appears to critique the European tradition from which these nudes developed: it shows the white figure, who the title suggests stands in for Europe, being physically supported by two darker-skinned women, bound in ropes and shackles, cast as Africa and America. In that sense, this painting could be understood as a critique of colonialism, suggesting that Europe's global power relies on the support of other lands—a support that is violently forced and too often masked.
Below that, we see William Blake's Pity, taken from Macbeth. Pity draws on the connection between light skin and moral purity that was popularly held at the time, with the benevolent figure of a divine spirit painted among grey horses. This reflects Blake's interest in the characters of different horses, which, read in the context of the other images in this spread, could be understood as racially coded. Unlike the other paintings by Blake that Berger includes, this one works within the traditional visual language of oil painting.
On the opposite page, one image presides: Mildew Blighting Ears of Corn, also by Blake. This resembles the painting by Blake that Berger referenced in the previous chapter as an exception to the oil painting tradition: its figures are abstract, abandoning representational verisimilitude for a more expressive style. Although both figures are naked, they don't seem to fit within the conventions of nudity that Berger described in Chapter 3, either. There is nothing in this image to be possessed; it is evocative primarily thanks to its interesting composition and delicate forms. The subjects in this painting are more ethereal than the oil paintings we see throughout most of this essay, lacking the same tangibility that's typical of oil painting. In light of the analysis in Chapter 3, Berger would seem to read this as a positive trait, gesturing against traditional oil paintings' glorification of material ownership.
On the next page, we see an oil painting of a wealthy white woman being dressed by two black women. Though the black women are also dressed luxuriously, their position on the floor, while the white woman sits in a chair, indicates that they are subservient to her. Below that is a painting of an auction house, in which slaves and paintings are being sold side by side. The top two images on the right-hand page also depict wealthy-looking white subjects surrounded by subservient black figures. In all of these paintings, the system of ownership that Berger describes in Chapter 3 is evident, and even more poignant when one realizes that the "objects" that the oil painting tradition would typically seek to encourage ownership of are, in this case, people. If we accept Berger's proposition that oil painting, as a medium, encourages property ownership more than any other medium thanks to its capacity for rich, detailed depictions, then the "way of seeing" encoded in these paintings is extremely troubling. Interestingly, these four images are contrasted against a portrait of two black men, seen from the waist up. The relationship between this image and the previous four is uncertain, as, like in previous photo essays, Berger offers no clarifying text. One possible reading could be positive: the men appear stately and handsome, with the rich verisimilitude enabled by oil painting rendering them masterfully. On the other hand, given the relationship between painting and ownership, this may not be the case: if, as Berger suggests in Chapter 3 (and again, albeit more subtly, in Chapter 5), to own a painting is implicitly to own its subject matter, then perhaps this painting posits black people as just another subject to be bought.
The following page contains only two images, both of children. The child on the left-hand side seems distraught, looking up at the subject through a furrowed brow. The index tells us that this is a photograph by an unknown artist, depicting Sarah Burge, a young orphan in an institution established by Dr. Barnardo. This photo was taken in 1833, relatively early in the history of photography. Without knowing much about the photograph besides its title, we can still locate it relative to the tradition of "genre pictures" that Berger describes for oil painting: in these didactic (and ultimately idealistic) images, wealth is associated with moral purity and poverty with lack of virtue. By depicting an unfortunate child, this photo challenges those associations: would viewers go so far as to extend this paradigm to children, who are typically understood to be innocent and naïve, still learning the codes of morality? It's also interesting that this image is a photograph, while the other images in the chapter are oil paintings. What statement might Berger wish to make about the intrinsic "ways of seeing" in each medium? Because photographs are the mass-reproducible medium sine qua non, the inclusion of a photo here is striking. Perhaps this image represents a departure from the materialistic worldview that oil painting upheld—indeed, this proposition is strengthened by the fact that the impoverished subjects we see in oil paintings in Chapter 5 are all happy-looking, thrilled to serve the wealthy and aspiring to become them one day, whereas this subject simply looks miserable. The oil painting of a child on the other side, entitled Peasant Boy Leaning on Sill, further encourages this comparison. Although the title tells us he is a peasant, the boy is smiling, seemingly unaffected by his disadvantaged social class. In this spread, the distinction between photography and oil painting is thus made apparent, as photography, with its mass reproducibility, departs from oil painting's emphasis on ownership and complicity in the glorification of capitalism.
The next two pages are populated with numerous oil paintings, all of which depict domestic scenes. In each of these paintings, the ideological function of oil painting that Berger discusses in Chapter 5 is apparent: the lustrous, detailed renderings of the objects that outfit these paintings make them seem almost possible to touch, and this tactile impression stirs in the viewer a desire to possess them. The relationship between these images and the analysis from Chapter 5 is fairly straightforward: so why then are two images printed directly on the fold between the pages? Perhaps this is a commentary on reproducibility, harkening all the way back to Chapter 1. When these images became reproducible—in this case, through the advent of the camera and printing press—they were no longer limited to their original context, which, in this case, would likely have been the home of a noble family. Liberated from the time and place they once occupied, they can be harnessed to other ends, inserted into an argument, as Berger seems to do here. By distorting the images through fracturing them, he could be said to counteract the ideology of the oil painting tradition, ruining the paintings' sense of representational realism and thus limiting their impact on the viewer's desire for possession.
The images of animals on the next two pages recall Berger's discussion of oil paintings of livestock in Chapter 5. It appears that the animals in these paintings, whether dogs or horses, were selected for their pedigrees. Just like an oil painting of a luxurious mansion or rich-looking feast, the subject matter depicted here stands in for wealth, cataloging all the expensive things one might own if one accumulated sufficient riches to buy them with. Only one painting on this spread is absent of animals; in it, a noble-looking family poses against a beautifully groomed natural landscape. In this image, it is their property that is on display. Just like Berger describes in the previous chapter, this painting could be interpreted as a mere appreciation of nature; but in fact it relies on the fact that this particular slice of nature belongs to the family depicted within it. These paintings make clear that, within the logic of the oil painting tradition, there is nothing that can't be possessed: not even things typically considered "wild," like horses or trees, defy possession.
The final spread of the chapter offers numerous oil paintings, all depicting human subjects. The first two on the left-hand page are both crowded scenes, representing the wealthy classes of two distinct historical periods. On top is an image of a Roman feast; despite the reproduction of the image being fairly small, numerous details emphasizing the feast's luxury still stand out. Below that, a painting with a similar composition is reproduced, this time depicting a Parisian salon. Both paintings depict gaiety, social success, and above all, wealth. The viewer, regarding these images, can't help but feel a little left out--although unlike in still-life paintings, the subject matter of these images isn't a series of objects to be possessed, the underlying ideology is still one that privileges wealth.
On the bottom-left-hand page are two images of women, side-by-side. The woman on the left is elaborately clothed in an exquisite dress; the one on the right is nude, her long hair cascading behind her as she looks down at a male figure who reaches up towards her from within the ocean. Of course, the nude woman recalls Berger's discussion of the female nude in Chapter 3, and her placement in the painting—frontal, sprawled in an unnatural position that emphasizes her sexual characteristics—confirms this. Interestingly, however, it appears that the male subject of the painting is in peril, reversing the power dynamic seen in other paintings of female nudes throughout the book. While the woman in this painting certainly appears, it seems she also acts, gesturing towards the drowning man as though she is about to save him. The clothed woman in the left-hand painting harkens back to the discussion of oil paintings in the previous chapter, serving as an idealized figure of wealth and luxury. In this sense, both women are figured as idealized, albeit in different ways: one upholds the values of capitalism, while one serves the (typically male) viewer's sexual pleasure.
The right-hand side of the page offers four more paintings, all depicting nude women, although their message is once again quite obscure. We could hazard a guess about the two top images, whose titles—Witches Sabbath and The Temptation of St. Anthony—imply that the naked female subjects are up to no good. Witches Sabbath appears to depart from the typical tradition of the female nude, showing women in action, not necessarily configured for the spectator's visual pleasure. However, given the painting's title, it seems that the message isn't one of empowerment; rather, the only women to be depicted naked without overt sexualization are witches. The Temptation of St. Anthony shows a woman engaged in a much different kind of moral turpitude: she attempts to seduce a pious man, and, in doing so, also seems to tempt the viewer. Unlike Witches Sabbath, The Temptation of St. Anthony is consistent with the tradition of female nudes that emphasizes sexuality and makes it appear that the naked woman exists for the viewer. In this sense, the viewer of this painting might identify with St. Anthony, taking on the delusional belief that the seductive woman in the painting exists for him.
In the painting on the bottom-left side of this page, a nude woman, framed in ornate Greek columns, undresses for a bath. She gazes at her reflection in the pool of water before her. This recalls Berger's observation in Chapter 3 that the mirror, frequently employed as a symbol of female vanity, is actually quite hypocritical: within the narrative of the painting, this woman is narcissistic, yet what's truly narcissistic is the male painter's desire to paint her in the nude and possess that nude, imagining that her state is for him. The final image in the chapter, on the bottom right, seems to question the conventional female nude, though it's difficult to say exactly how. The image is so small that its details are tough to make out, though the naked-looking female figure on the left-hand side of the painting appears to be on fire. Several other subjects in the painting—male passers-by—seem to go about their business without regarding her, unlike the male subjects of typical female nudes that generally appear absorbed in the women before them. On the other hand, perhaps the woman isn't on fire at all, but shrouded in a cloud; nevertheless, those that surround her seem unperturbed by whatever dramatic event is occurring. Is the spectator meant to mirror the men in the painting and walk on by? Again, the answer is unclear, but when reproduced in proximity to all these other oil paintings of female nudes, it encourages us to evaluate the ideological underpinnings of both traditions.
