Berger Reading Response

Berger, in his article “Ways of Seeing”, attempts to explore the objectification of women both by other men as well as themselves. He argues that this phenomenon can be traced back to the European painting tradition of nudes. A nude is a painting of a woman reduced to an object, without desire (or even body hair). Ultimately, Berger wants his audience of modern (1970s) popular readers to know that art (high and low) represents a social construct on how women are perceived.  His reasoning is that how a woman sees herself is how others see her, because if a woman sees herself as a classical “nude”, who only exists for the visual pleasure of a man, she certainly will be one.

 

This article relates somewhat to the McCloud cartoon that focuses on images in the form of icons. McCloud argues that the more abstract an image is, the more people that image can represent. In Berger’s article, nudes are “treated as a thinf or as an abstraction” (215). Berger says that “nude” women can represent multiple women because they are idealized, unreal women, meant only for the pleasure of their male viewer. Alternatively, Berger argues that the “naked” woman is one who is painted in true detail, imperfections and all. She is an individual, unlike the perfect nude, who exists not for herself but for her male viewer.

 

Pre-Reading Exercise

Look at any picture of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise from when they were together. This woman is clearly telling the world how she views herself and how it in turn should view her. They all have the same look, him with his possessive arm around her, her hunched over slightly to make up for the unseemly height difference. He has a big grin, as if to say “look what I have”, and she smiles demurely, happy in her subjugation by an insane midget.  I think Katie is very much trying to act the classical nude, though as a modern, wealthy woman she could be her own individual if she so wished. Moreover, these pictures aren’t candids, they are posing for the paparazzi; this is how they consciously wish to be seen.

 

Questions for Discussion and Journaling

1) I do think these men knew what they were doing when they painted women as nude objects. First and foremost, the painters needed to sell their paintings if they wanted to make a living, so it made sense to appeal to as many people as possible. Painters could achieve this mass appeal by painting nudes because, as Berger mentions, nudes are an abstraction, an object that any male viewer can own. When painters paint a woman as a unique individual, the market for the painting goes down considerably; no man can own what isn’t for sale. I think Berger would agree that painters were conscious of what they were doing when they objectified women in their paintings. Berger even cites Albrecht Durer, a painter who was very much ok with the objectivity of women in paintings, and who even suggests that the ideal nude should be an amalgamation of different body parts. (215) You can’t get less individualistic than that. 

 

3) I think perhaps the presence of men has changes a bit from the time Berger was writing this article. While I think that a woman can still sometimes be judged by “her mannerisms, her attire, her surroundings, and how she expresses herself,” I also think that men are now, to a larger extent, judged by the same criteria. The strict dichotomy of powerful male, subservient female no longer applies to every situation. I think the gender lines have blurred a bit; I know that women who view themselves as powerful can be viewed as such.

 

Meta Moment

I think Berger’s article “Ways of Seeing” can tell us more than how women are viewed in art and life. I think the article can tell us a little bit about the rhetorical relationship between the writer/painter/encoder, the reader/viewer/decoder, and the text/painting/reality. What Berger said about the relationship between a painter and his subject matter affecting how an audience can perceive his work applies to writers as well. If a writer dutifully records every individualistic detail of a subject, she runs the risk of alienating her audience with her personal relationship to the subject. However, she also could display the subject as it truly is, not an idealized version of the subject.

 

 

I think this article, though focused on the art world, had some interesting things to say about the social presence of women. Although, I think that there are plenty of women who are “naked” rather than “nude” today, as in the times these paintings were commissioned. I think I can use the knowledge presented in this article to consider how my readers view women. Also, I can use apply this knowledge to my own writing and consider if I am writing something for myself alone or writing something so that it may be viewed and in some sense owned by others