About Looking

Ways of Seeing was based on a BBC TV series and was a ground-breaking, seminal text that completely revitalised and revolutionised discussions about art. About Looking continues this original approach to art and photography For fans of the essays of Susan Sontag, especially On Photography, and Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes About Looking was originally published in 1980 in the UK by a small publishers. In the US it is Berger's second biggest selling title for Vintage

The follow-up to the seminal Ways of Seeing, one of the most influential books on artAs a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other questions, Berger alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.