art of publicity
The Art of Publicity
In the book Ways of Seeing, the author, John Berger creates the deeper understanding of the look on art, along with the influences that traditional oil painting has had on society and modern day publicity. The book not only explores how visual culture came to dominate society but also how ideologies are created and transmitted via images. There are things people cannot describe in words but that images can illustrate. Images have the power to mystify the viewers, which means viewers can only interpret the meaning of the image not knowing the true meaning behind artist’s message. In the beginning of the book, he mentions contrary perspectives on art in the past and present and the effect of reproduction. Reproduction now has the ability to change the entire meaning of the painting by making its reference point for other images. Towards the end, he introduces the concept of publicity, which connects to the overall theme of this book. Berger defines publicity as the culture of consumer society. It is produced through images that society believes in. According to John Berger, publicity affects people’s daily lives without them knowing it, giving them false expectations.
Berger discusses in detail the concept of publicity, which people accept as a normality of everyday life since people are exposed to them on a daily basis. Anywhere they go, they see an image displayed in front of them. Whether it is on a web page, in the middle of a TV show, or on the billboards outside, one tends to pass it unless it corresponds to some particular interest he has. Berger states that the images “belong to the moment but speak for the future” (130) that produces the effect that the society hardly notices it. The images look into the past and refer to the future to make people feel like they need certain things in order to be happy. The so called images can be for example advertisements. When one passes by an advertisement it is easy to say that “they are
In the book Ways of Seeing, the author, John Berger creates the deeper understanding of the look on art, along with the influences that traditional oil painting has had on society and modern day publicity. The book not only explores how visual culture came to dominate society but also how ideologies are created and transmitted via images. There are things people cannot describe in words but that images can illustrate. Images have the power to mystify the viewers, which means viewers can only interpret the meaning of the image not knowing the true meaning behind artist’s message. In the beginning of the book, he mentions contrary perspectives on art in the past and present and the effect of reproduction. Reproduction now has the ability to change the entire meaning of the painting by making its reference point for other images. Towards the end, he introduces the concept of publicity, which connects to the overall theme of this book. Berger defines publicity as the culture of consumer society. It is produced through images that society believes in. According to John Berger, publicity affects people’s daily lives without them knowing it, giving them false expectations.
Berger discusses in detail the concept of publicity, which people accept as a normality of everyday life since people are exposed to them on a daily basis. Anywhere they go, they see an image displayed in front of them. Whether it is on a web page, in the middle of a TV show, or on the billboards outside, one tends to pass it unless it corresponds to some particular interest he has. Berger states that the images “belong to the moment but speak for the future” (130) that produces the effect that the society hardly notices it. The images look into the past and refer to the future to make people feel like they need certain things in order to be happy. The so called images can be for example advertisements. When one passes by an advertisement it is easy to say that “they are