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No Comments Random Musings On Art
This was a mid-term I did back in school.
1. John Berger: A British art historian, published a book called Ways of Seeing. In the book he discusses how we are affected by what we know or believe. In a moment of seeming ambivalence, Berger bemoans that reproduced art loses its ‘aura’, even while conceding that the reproduced works can be used for many different things. He speaks in a positive way about this fact. Take for example Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. “Since 1980, there has been, on average, one new use found for the Mona Lisa every week: air travel (to Paris), rum, oranges, wigs, blood-testing kits, air-conditioning equipment, a dental prosthesis, the Renault Twingo, the cosmetic face mask Mudd, Marriott’s Renaissance hotels, computer equipment and the intrauterine device Mona Lisa-CU375.” ( http://www.newstatesman.com/200109240032). A reproduced work can “lend itself to them all.”
Berger’s philosophies and assertions are much more detailed and complex than what is presented here. Reading Ways of Seeing, or accessing archives of his old BBC program will reveal more of the mind of John Berger. Read more »