Ways of Seeing [John Berger Centennial Edition]

"Seeing comes before words. Children see and recognize before they can speak."

▌Through seeing, we confirm our presence in the world around us; we use words to explain this world, but words can never restore the fact that the world encompasses us. The relationship between the world we see and the world we know is never certain.
▌Our knowledge and beliefs influence how we see things. Once we can see, we quickly become aware that we can also be seen.
▌When an image is presented as a work of art, how we view it is influenced by the entire set of artistic perspectives we have learned.

John Berger's *Ways of Seeing* emphasizes that both "form" and "argument" are equally important, attempting to provoke readers to question and explore how we view paintings... This will undoubtedly change the way readers view images.

The book is organized by chapters, and readers can read them in any order they prefer. Four chapters consist of text and images, while the other three chapters contain only images. The chapters composed of images address the way women's bodies are viewed and various contradictory aspects within the tradition of oil painting. Although they lack text, the questions they aim to raise are no less significant than those in the textual chapters. In these chapters, the author sometimes refrains from providing any related information directly, to prevent text from distracting readers and interfering with the meaning conveyed by the images—this is the essence of the way of seeing.

First published in 1972 and based on the BBC television series of the same name, this book is one of the most thought-provoking and influential classic works among all books on art. To this day, its status as an introductory guide for readers on how to view works of art remains as relevant as ever.