ABSTRACT
The core themes in John Berger's Ways of Seeing are presented in four different essays. These are the importance of social and historical context when looking at art; the demystification of art objects and art criticism as well as the portrayal of women and their role as subjects in artworks; the relation between subject matter and ownership in European oil painting; and the power of present-day advertising imagery. It is hard to pinpoint any other, subordinate themes, as the main thrust of the work is to question traditional ways of looking at art, which were based on connoisseurship and judging artistic skill. The extent to which the value of an artwork is affirmed, and further defined by the price it fetches on the market, is a theme that was only touched on by the author. Berger then uses the example of Adriaen Brouwer who was the "only exceptional 'genre' painter".
