It sums up visual language in an accessible way. I particularly liked this comment “Images can be used like words, we can talk with them”. It’s possible but involves a considerable amount of concentration. Sometimes looking at images alongside each other, can feel like trying to focus on one persons distinct voice in the middle of a loud crowd.
How much more does this issue apply to viewing art work on platforms like instagram or Pinterest where you can see painting after painting, the eye and brain become full of so many visual messages. He makes comment on how we interpret meaning of images when we see them alongside other images for instance in a magazine, they vie for attention. And I agree with this, music itself speaks has a connotation or feeling which can be used to manipulate our feelings towards an image or even an event. He also makes note of the use of music to accompany the viewing of a work of art changes the feeling or meaning of the piece we are viewing. When we look at a painting in person it exists as a whole piece, when we view it by film or television we see it viewed in stages and fragments through a sequence of time. We are at the mercy of the areas chosen to be focussed on and we lose sight of the painting or work before us as a whole. The issue of silence – paintings do not speak, they are silent, he claims this makes them easily pray to manipulation but the movement of the camera, or movement of our thoughts/eye. What meaning do reproductions acquire when we hang them on our walls at home? ” A lot more is possible, but only is art is stripped of the false mystery and the false religiosity which surrounds it.” It comes to you, this meaning, like the news of an event. It’s meaning ,or a large part of it has become transmittable. “The meaning of a painting no longer resides on it’s unique painted surface, which it is only possible to see in one place at one time. It is the image of the painting which travels now.” As I watched I made some notes of phrases that stood out to me, or my responses to his ideas, these aren’t arranged as an essay merely an arrangement of thoughts for my own reference. I’ve just watched the first episode of Ways of Seeing by John Berger.