Opinions of seeing
John Berger wrote an article entitled "Ways of Seeing". In this article of his, he imposes his opinion of "works of art", what constitutes a work of art. He also talks about reproductions of art. His perception of reproductions is that they pervert the original piece, and that by reproduction the beauty and value of the piece is taken away, that the piece is not the same because it does not represent anymore what the artist originally intended. I do not agree with Berger. I do not see reproductions of art to be perversions of the original, and I also do not agree with his outline for a "work of art". Reproduction allows people to see something they might never have, they allow the artist to gain more exposure, whereas if there had been no reproduction, only a handful of people might have seen it. As to what a "work of art" is, that is something I believe to be totally up to the observer. What one may perceive to be beautiful, an opinion perhaps brought on by personal experiences, another may not see the same way. A work of art I truly enjoy and respect is Salvador Dali's "Table with Landscape". The joy of the painting for me comes from the intricacies that Dali weaves into the painting. The painting has many levels
I myself initially saw a cup on a table, but someone else might see the face in the cup first, or the dog in the background. Being able to interpret the painting for your own reasons is a freedom that allows us to be creative. This is something I would do when I am confused, if there is too much going on in my head that it seems it is all one big mess, I take the time to separate the ideas and I slowly begin to understand my situation better. As I said, I do not believe a "work of art" can be decided upon by a small group of people, because then only their points of view are considered when making the decision. I no longer cared what the painting had meant to Dali when he was painting it, but rather I was interested in what the painting meant to me. The way I interpret the painting will most probably be different from someone else's interpretation, that is because we look for different things in the painting. Our minds are stimulated in different ways. This is because what one person may see to be an example of beauty in a painting, another person might have a different opinion. In the painting I described earlier, there are many possibilities as to what someone's first interpretation might be, or what would be the first thing they saw in the painting. Well then, which is it, do we understand the painting or don't we? It is true that we cannot understand the painter's perspective from looking at the painting itself, but we can understand the painting for our own reasons, based on our own experiences. What is a "work of art"? Who determines what is or is not a "work of art"? Berger talks about "works of art", mainly when he refers to common paintings that most people recognize by name. The neck of the cup seemed to be part of a face, the mouth and nose of the face lying in the table. They were merely canvases filled with paint, the same as they are today, yet at the time when they were produced, they were not immediately considered revolutionary and inspirational for their time. When I tell people about this painting and what it means to me, they often have no idea of what I could possibly mean, but the fact that they don't understand me is inconsequential, because the painting is special to me for my own reasons, and that is what is important to me.
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Acceptance Essays
