Ways Of Seeing (series 3)

      The concept of reinforcing the importance of objects and materialism through oil painting is explored in Chapter five of Ways of Seeing.  The move away from religious art to humanist celebrations of the triumphs of mankind also gave way to the glorification of the “possession”.  This development in art mirrored what was going on socially, agriculturally, and technologically in Europe at the time.  As life got better people learned to value material objects more and more which was paralleled in popular and contemporary art.
       With the advent of oil painting “art” itself became more of an object and something you were able to own.  This ties in with Berger’s earlier analysis on rarity and what exact variable gives art and paintings their “value”.  Oil painting as a popular art form lasted from about 1500 to 1900.  It used to be the principle source of visual imagery until photography (specifically color photography) replaced it.  Until then, oil painting was the most superior medium in which to create visual images.  The vivid and highly realistic textures that are often on display in oil painting also promote this obsession with “owning”.  The textures and objects that the spectator can associate with touch are superior and more meaningful than symbols like a skull, for example.

                                         

        You can own paintings in a different way than you can own poems and music.  You can display them and reap the praise and accolades that come from having such good taste as to own such finery.  Art, rather than music or literature, is also expected to be on display.
         Painting or art as a commodity has been held higher than all other possessions and finery like clothes, plates, cutlery, furniture…etc because of its ability “to speak to the soul”.  Artists where considered agents and laborers at one point- expendable and paid to paint exactly and solely what their patrons mandated.

“The Masters”

        Within the world of oil painting comes the comparison of “the average” versus “the exceptional” artists.   And from there- what constitutes “the exceptional”?  The obvious answer is: skill, imagination, and morale.  The “masters” greatness was revolutionary and unique but then eventually enveloped into the tradition by mimics into the general field of oil painting.
                                             

        Oil painting developed with the classes.  Before, being high class or “rich” was a fixed state that was neither, left or entered.  But as the symbol of status became most significantly tied to having money, no matter how one got it, oil painting/art changed to reflect this.  Oil painting reinforced values and trends of the time whole-heartedly.  Tenets like colonization, the superiority of the white man to both woman and black people, and classism were all time and time again positively related through contemporary art.  The physical details of the sitters face (for a portrait) became less important in comparison to the importance of showing the sitter’s prestige or status according to his or her title.  The purpose of art became to display wealth through subject matter.  Thus the depiction of livestock, property, and lifestyle became popular.

 

        The classics and an understanding of them was a way for the higher classes to live distinctly separate from the majority of their lesser of peers.  It allowed them to have a “higher” more revered code of life to live by.  (and one that the lower classes had no access to.)  This is why paintings of mythical Greek stories was so popular.
        Genre painting served to reinforce the idea that the well-off where well-off because they worked and the poor had nothing because they were lazy.  The genre or “slice of life” paintings where considered tacky.
        Berger’s summary of his views on oil painting brings to mind the quote “history is written by the victors”.  In the same manner visual history (aka art) was commissioned by the wealthy and titled; the minute percentage of the population that was luck enough to be born into such luxury.  Therefore, oil painting is not so much a “window open on to the world” but a window open on to the lives of a very small part of the population throughout history.
         The images collected show the contrast between black and white, servant and master, parent and child, pet or animal and human, and finally woman and sexuality. All of these relationships and associations share a common trait and that is the dominance or superiority of one of the pairs in the relationship. None of the the paintings depict equals, they all have a hierarchy and the most dominant is the image of the white male.
         To some extent these images show the development and continuance of these imbalanced relationships. Thus generations that came after the beginning of slavery and colonization learned to view blacks as inferior and subserviant. In the same strain women were (and are) only powerful through the use of their own seduction and wily charms. It is never their intelligence ir bravery that makes them remarkable but their beauty and allure, or in other words- their nudity.
         Children are innocents who, especially in the past, where not valued. They were ”to be seen not heard” and by no means respected. They learned to view themselves as inerior to adults in every way. In the images shown children are only masters of their pets- large collections of cats and dogs. Thus from an early age they are taught that there is a social order or hierarchy that everything must follow. And as far as this order went women, blacks, children, and animals received similar treatment appropriate to their inferior status.