Television series
Ways of Seeing
- Slow-burning
John Berger's revolutionary 1972 essay series dismantles how we've been trained to see art, images, and the world itself. Philosophical but never dry, it moves fluidly between Renaissance paintings, advertisements, and nudes, arguing that sight is never innocent—it's always shaped by culture and power. Essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand how images colonize thought.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy an argument that makes you look at familiar paintings and adverts differently, delivered by a sharp, unhurried talker who trusts his ideas to carry the room.
Skip it if you came for a conventional art history survey with dates, schools and museum tours; this is a short, opinionated essay on seeing, and it argues more than it informs.
What it asks of you: Four half-hour episodes that move at the pace of a lecture, with pictures held on screen while Berger talks, so you need to listen closely rather than skim.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Ascent of Man1973
Jacob Bronowski's parallel masterpiece: a scientist-philosopher walking through history, asking how knowledge itself is constructed. Like Berger, he believes understanding vision means understanding civilization.
But Paced for 1973 television—longer stretches without cuts. The cosmic ambition can feel dated now, though that's partly the point.
Civilisations2018
Simon Schama continues Berger's project with modern production values, examining how art reveals what cultures believed about themselves. Respectful to the tradition while asking new questions about whose art gets seen.
But Necessarily more conservative in its approach—it's attempting to update rather than overturn. Less radical in its conclusions.
The Shock of the New1980
Robert Hughes on modern art with similar intellectual swagger to Berger, though Hughes tends toward personality and polemic. Still asks how seeing changes across eras, with infectious energy.
But Hughes's opinions calcify over time. By the later episodes, you're watching taste calcify into doctrine.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ways of Seeing
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Harakiri1962
Both insist that how we *frame* something—literally, visually—is never neutral. It's always a statement of power. Harakiri shows what that looks like when executed with absolute conviction.
Masaki Kobayashi's masterpiece: a formal, meticulously composed film about ritual suicide that weaponizes composition itself—beauty and meaning tear apart. What Berger argued about painting and power, it proves through mise-en-scène without a word of theory.
But Brutal subject matter, relentless formal control, and a length (almost three hours) that demands total attention. Not a film you watch while doing something else.
More like this (1)
How Art Made the World2005
Neil MacGregor extends Berger's thinking across human cultures: how humans have *always* used images to make meaning, not just in the European tradition. Genuinely expansive.
But Necessarily introductory. If you're already deep in art history, it can feel like covering familiar ground.
People
Cast
- John BergerPresenter
Recommended by
Civilisation, The Day the Universe Changed, Civilisations, The Shock of the New, Secrets of the Museum, Art of the Western World, How Art Made the World, The Men Who Made Us Spend