Mediaworks

Magritte's Views

12October1999

The 'event' of John Berger's Ways of Seeing is framed between two works of the surrealist painter René, Magritte's. The first The Key of Dreams is an image of four panels, which resembles a view through a window. In each 'pane' is an object in a black field with white cursive text beneath. In all but one of them, the text line does not correspond with the object. The object in the 'pane' with the correct text is a suitcase, or as the text implies "the valaise" (front cover, 8). All of the other text is in English. The meaning to this tension is found in Alfred Korzybski's maxim; "the map is not the territory." The words we use to describe our experience distort those perceptions and influence our conception of the world. Those mis?conceptions in turn become our only perception of the world. In short, the use of language as a signifier of reality is a poor representation, which by the very nature of its limitation places the viewer in a mediated and secondary relationship to what it is intended to signify. Getting lost in the map, we forget about the territory.
Berger performs the same feat when he uses Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows, first without, then with text stating it was "the last picture that Van Gogh painted before he killed himself" (27-8), to illustrate that the way we see the image changes in context with the information we have. This is similar to the process of mystification Berger describes as "explaining away what might otherwise be evident" (15-6). In the same way that naming an object takes away its uniqueness because the name itself now becomes like the reproduction, a subject that points to but is not the object in question, "its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings" (19). He further elaborates on the distance or tension created between the mystification of the name and the uniqueness of the original work, "the spiritual value of an object, as distinct from a message or an example, can only be explained in terms of magic or religion. And since in our modern society neither of these is a living force, the art object, "the work of art" is enveloped in an atmosphere of entirely bogus religiosity" (21).
He goes on to discuss how these works are discussed and researched in an attempt to explain its pedigree and verify its descent. Magritte points out in his painting that this act of naming, signifying, or mystification is a confidence trick, which the observer performs on the observed to give meaning and order to the experience. The lengths to which this mystification can be carried are seen in films like F is for Fake, or more recently, The Moderns. In both of these films, the art critics and museum authorities are confounded in their attempt at assigning relativity by clever forgeries. Like the difficulty between the National Museum and the Louvre over Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks, these represent how difficult it is to tell the map for the territory once we have gotten lost.
Once this authority has been subverted, like the contents of Pandora's Box, it is impossible to replace. Berger says of this conundrum, "What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove it from any preserve ... images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial ... They surround us in the same way language surrounds us. They have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in themselves, have power" (32). These power and authority issues become the focus of the second essay where the view of the male observer becomes a power over; a visual authority relegating the feminine to the role of possession, where sexuality is one more possessed object in the catalog of his wealth.
At the time, this was written it is understandable that the feminist critique of this argument held sway. It is obvious at points though that Berger is speaking of the socio-economic aspect of this relationship as much as he is suggesting a feminist perspective. This is borne out in his comments in the third textual essay. Specific reference can be seen in discussion of Holbein's The Ambassadors (89-91), and Gainsborough's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (106-108). His most caustic remark in regards this can be seen in the comment "...the nostalgia of a ruling class in decline. (In decline not before the proletariat, but before the new power of the corporation and the state) (32).
This socio-economic critique continues into the final essay where it receives a thorough explication in relation to advertising and the way images create our worldview. This is shown specifically in the use of 'glamour', which is defined in relation to the happiness one feels when envied. (132). An obvious continuation of the nature of possession, except that it isn't simply the possessed objects which encourage envy, but the effect publicity has of "feeding on the real"(132). Yet this is again a mediated experience where the signifier and not the object itself encourages envy and consequently is seen as the enabler of 'happiness'. It still is a hierarchical relationship for as Berger notes, "It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you"(133).
It is important to recognize that the mediation of the experience of the real is further mediated in publicity by postponing the experience of the real. "Publicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred"(146). To further his critique of the system that encourages this mediation and signification he states, "the social conditions make the individual feel powerless"(148). Berger goes even further in this indictment of "a democracy which stopped halfway on its way to the ideal"(148). He says, "Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy ... Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society ... it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world"(149).
The second Magritte image has importance to this line of reasoning. The painting is the last image in the text; the title itself points us towards an understanding of its function. On the Threshold of Liberty (155) is similar to the first piece in that 'panes' or boxes break up the imagery, although here we are inside the box looking out at the images, as opposed to being outside the window looking in. A large cannon aimed at the panel that depicts a naked (or nude perhaps, we cannot see the top of the panel) female human torso takes up the foreground. The implication is that the cannon is perhaps preparing to blow apart the box like container of the 'panes'. The fact that it is aimed at a naked female torso signifies that this image, more than any others, has the potential to apart the containment.
The last paragraph of the text has meaning in relation to this interpretation. Berger furthers his critique of the ways of seeing in our culture by saying, "Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive (material; JLM) deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable"(154). The boxes or 'panes' then signify the way in which consensus reality, or our current way of seeing, is imposed on us by the language we use and the images we view, and in turn these impositions straightjacket our view of our selves, and the world we live in.
Perhaps the most important clue to all of this in regard to being lost in the map and forgetting about the territory is summed up in the final words of the text. They follow on the page immediately after the image of the Magritte painting in early printings of the text. They suggest that each and every one of us is responsible for our particular way of seeing and for that we all carry a responsibility to construct a different worldview than the one we are given to see. "To be continued by the reader..."(166).