berger and tompkins
John Berger's writing "Ways of Seeing" is a look into the world of art. Throughout his composition, he gives his opinions on various topics about art. Jane Tompkins essay "Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History" is a look into the world of history. Within her essay, Tompkins discusses her views on the quest of finding truth in history. She uses terms such as "relativism" ,the understanding that man or woman can never find the absolute truth in facts, and "epistemological quandary" , a predicament where in her case she could not find the correct knowledge and facts to interpret and learn the factual information she desired to possess. These terms help to develop her way of finding the historical truth when there are many different accounts of history. Reproductions occur in many different aspects of life. Two of these such aspects are art and history, the areas of expertise of Berger and Tompkins respectively. Berger believes that non-exact reproductions of art are of great value while Tompkins believes that there is little value if there is a non-exact reproduction or recount of history. John Berger ,an art critic as well as an author, is a proponent of reproducing art in different
Berger says, "Uniqueness of the original now lies in the original of a reproduction. Because of this, the historical account that historians write have be read with relativism in mind. Not only can art or paintings be reproduces with another painting but it can be reproduced with the camera. Widro 3This belief that reproduction further explains a piece of art carries into Berger's thinking on modern film and the modern camera. no longer what its image shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer found in what it says, but in what it is"(61). Yet here Tompkins finds further evidence of bias, and further frustration. As you can see Tompkins and Berger have distinct ideas on whether or not there are merits to reproductions life. I believe that history should not be explored ,rather, that in an ideal world, history is known and there is no need to hunt for it. Berger believes that there is a lot of merit because if there is a reproduction of the original piece than the original piece can be understood better thus making the artist's message that he or she wanted to convey through their paintings more viable. When Berger talks about this positive view of reproduction ,he says that, In the age of reproduction the meaning of the paintings is no longer attached to them; their meaning becomes transmittable that is to say it because information of a sort ,and, like all information, is either put to use or ignored; information carries no special authority within itself. Much like the inaccurate accounts of history can be thought of as fact even though it is not. This is another point that Berger uses to further display the benefit of art reproduction. This is a quandary where in her case she could not find the correct knowledge and facts to interpret and learn the factual information she desired to possess. First she begins to realize her dilemmas with establishing non-biased historical fact when preparing to teach a course in colonial American literature.
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Acceptance Essays
