Ways of Seeing Essay
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Write My Essay For MeOriginal paintings are silent and still in a sense that information never is. Even a reproduction hung on a wall is not comparable in this respect for in the original the silence and stillness permeate the actual material, the paint, in which one follows the traces of the painter’s immediate gestures. This has the effect of closing the distance in time between the painting of the picture and one’s own act of looking at it…What we make of that painted moment when it is before our eyes depends upon what we expect of art, and that in turn depends today upon how we have already experienced the meaning of paintings through reproductions.” (p. 116)
While John Berger describes original paintings as silent in this passage, it is clear that these paintings begin to speak if one approaches them properly, if one learns to ask “the right questions of the past.” Berger demonstrates one route of approach, for example, in his reading of the Hals paintings, where he asks questions about the people and objects and their relationships to the painter and the viewer. What the paintings might be made to say, however, depends on the viewer’s expectations, his or her sense of the questions that seem appropriate or possible. Berger argues that, because of the way art is currently displayed, discussed, and reproduced, the viewer expects only to be mystified.
For this paper, imagine you are working against the silence and mystification Berger describes. Go to the Lowe museum—or, if that is not possible, to a large-format book of reproductions in the library (or, if that is not possible, to the reproductions on the Web)—and select a painting that seems silent and still, yet invites conversation. Your job is to figure out what sorts of questions to ask, to interrogate the painting, to get it to speak, to engage with the past in some form of dialogue. Write an essay in which you record this process and what you have learned from it. Somewhere in the paper, perhaps at the end, turn back to Berger’s essay and speak to it about how this process has or hasn’t confirmed what you take to be Berger’s expectations.
Note: If possible, include with your essay a reproduction of the painting you select. (Check the postcards at the museum gift shop.) In any event, you want to make sure that you describe the painting in sufficient detail for your readers to follow what you say. Furthermore, for this process to be successful, you’ll have to engage with the past.
This essay must be 5 – 7 pages, typed, and double spaced. It will be assessed according to the following:
Clarity of Thesis
Relevancy of Detail
Flow and Organization
Effect use of Concepts from the Text
Proper Language Usage
Effective Editing
In-Depth Analysis
Compliance with Instruction
Creativity
How does the painting (how we perceive the painting):
– Affected by what we know or believe
– As much as examination of ourselves as it is an examination of the text
– What we bring: ethnicity, understanding of history
– Culture, prior knowledge, religion, gender, education, class
– Import ourselves onto the text, should notice, but not necessarily attempt to compensate for, no right answer, no objective analysis.
– Use of color (demonstrating a specific emotion)
– Mystification – treating assumptions as objective informative; saying what we merely assume to be true is in fact true
– Perspective – the angle at which we view visual texts can influence what we consider important about that text; figuratively and metaphorically.
– Can only ne in 1 place at a time, so we can never see all angles at once, must choose 1, and that choice reflects bias.
You can choose a painting of your choice and include it in the essay.
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