Considering that it is virtually impossible to define the Zen philosophy in a succinct fashion, it should be largely unsurprising that an art-form that grew out of Zen required an entire book to even begin to explain. That is not to say that the author evaded the question, far from it: the fault (if it could be called such) lies directly in the subject. I found the topic of wabi sabi fascinating, while at the same time finding my own tastes justified within a larger school of thought on art. It really all comes down to impermanence. In fact, that is the subtitle of the book: the Japanese art of impermanence.

Of course, that title might be a little misleading. While yes, they do discuss the tea ceremony and other transient events as art, there is a great deal more to wabi sabi than that. It is more an acceptance of your surroundings and letting nature have a role in the creation of things. The example used that really encapsulated the feeling for me best was when he was discussing ash-glazed pottery. The author described an old kiln that is still in use, though it only burns once a year. The pots are placed in or near the flue, and as the ash is pulled upwards through the chimney, it glazes the pots. Each pot is in a different spot in the kiln, and so the glaze is different for every pot. That act of abandoning the work and letting nature take its role in creation is wabi sabi in a nutshell, for me at least.

The words wabi and sabi both have extensive histories, during which time they have gained enough meanings to become too ambiguous to have a direct and literal translation. The basic gist when used together, is finding beauty in solitude and natural desolation. The author related a story of Sen No Rikyu, master of the tea ceremony, whom had a marvelous garden with flowers in it that his guests would pass through to reach the tea room. The Emperor, Hideyoshi had heard of the garden, and in particular desired to see the morning glories in it. He was invited to a tea ceremony, and upon his arrival discovered that all of the morning glories had been cut. Upon arriving to the tea room, he discovered a single, beautifully arranged morning glory adorning the tea room. This sort of attention and focus really appeals to me, aesthetically speaking, and grounds my sentiment that simplicity and letting things fall where they may can prove to be provocative and striking on a level that more complex and ordered images might not achieve. (A case in point: one of my favorite pieces that my mother has painted is a single maple leaf, done in ink and water color… she’s done a variety of more complex and detailed images, but my attention is invariably drawn to the leaf.)

Overall, the book manages to avoid being pretentious, which makes it a significantly better read than it could have otherwise been. There are a few points where the subject was treated a bit too much like a golden calf (notably, in the introduction itself), but they are thankfully few and far between. Mostly, the sentiment I gathered out of the book was that the author had a genuine interest in (and knowledge of) the material.

Wabi Sabi is broken into a few parts. It starts out with a reasonably in depth history of the art form, which grew out of Zen philosophy when Buddhism first started making a cultural impact in Japan. This was a fascinating topic for me, and really elucidated a lot about the origins of different forms of Buddhism. One thing that really interested me about it stems from an ongoing conversation I have had with my father about Baha’i Art. He is of the sentiment that there largely isn’t any currently being made, and that what is currently touted as such is really nothing more than ecclesiastic art. Reading about wabi sabi really drove home that idea. Wabi Sabi is essentially Zen Buddhist art. Yet it rarely if ever has anything to do with images of the Buddha or others. What makes it stem from Zen Buddhism is that it is a representation and extension of the philosophy that underlies Zen Buddhism, not that it depicts religious scenes, individuals, or icons.

The next section discusses the interrelationship between wabi sabi and the culture it originated in. I was less impressed with this section, though I can’t put a finger on exactly why. I think what it comes down to is that in trying to make a distinction between Japanese culture and American culture, the author relied too much on his own opinions, and less on objective observation and facts. It was clear that he had lived in Japan for several years, and disagrees strongly with the adoption of aspects of western civilization.

The third section discusses wabi sabi art specifically, and was pretty interesting. This is where the author talked about the ash-glazed pottery that so intrigued me, as well as going a bit more in depth about how the philosophy behind wabi sabi can be applied to various kinds of art. It was a little short, however, and made the next section somewhat jarring, since the fourth section quite literally laid down basic ground rules for using different materials in your designs. The whole notion of setting down firm rules of how materials must be applied seemed to go against the entire notion that he had been describing for the rest of the book. I think that there is a lot more flexibility to the form than what he laid out.

The fifth and final section was a personal diatribe on the state of things in modern western society, and an argument to justify why adopting wabi sabi principles is important. I largely agree with him: we are an increasingly disposable society, with huge amounts of luxuries and technology, all the while lamenting our unhappiness. In the current generation especially (the post-gen-x generation), there is an overwhelming sentiment of feeling spiritually lost, a disconnect with our surroundings and ourselves. I can’t help but feel that encouraging the sort of reconnection with nature that occurs in wabi sabi art would help that sentiment.

While it had very little to do with drawing explicitly, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in eastern art It was well worth the time to read it.

Juniper, Andrew. Wabi Sabi. Boston, Tuttle Publishing, 2003.

When I decided to do a studio study on drawing, I mentioned this to my aunt, who is an artist and art instructor both privately and for Lebanon College in Lebanon, New Hampshire. I mentioned that I was planning to read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which she heartily endorsed, but also suggested another book that she uses in her classes, which is Keys to Drawing, by Bert Dodson (whom is apparently currently living in Bradford, Vermont, just up the road from her). It’s not an overwhelmingly large book, but is absolutely packed with useful drawing advice, including an index of concepts and terminology in the back that has already proven useful to me in understanding the vocabulary of drawing.

One of the things that I really appreciate in Keys to Drawing is that the author doesn’t assume anything. He explains everything quickly and clearly, from how to hold the pen or pencil or charcoal or conte crayon (and why and how it varies depending on the medium, as well as your intended style), to shading techniques (pressure shading versus cross hatching, for instance), as well as giving probably the best explanation of perspective and vanishing points I have seen to date. His method involves determining where eye level is, and then using your pencil to act as a level to measure outward to determine the vanishing point. This allows for a more concrete sense of place to draw from, since these two aspects also establish the viewpoint of the image. (This might seem a bit obvious when drawing from life, where the viewpoint is your own, but when drawing from your imagination, it is significantly more useful to have a quick and easy method to figure out the viewpoint you want to draw from.)

There are a variety of styles of drawing that are addressed in this book. I found it interesting to see how they were connected, since Dodson often makes a point of showing pieces at various stages, including separate drafts (something that doesn’t often get discussed). There are several occasions where he goes from an almost abstract gesture drawing to an outline drawing, to a rough sketch, to a final, textured and shaded piece. Seeing this process fascinates me sometimes more than the drawing itself.

Something that I definitely need to improve upon is what he discusses in chapter six, “The Illusion of Texture.” There is a LOT of information there, and I found myself a little bogged down with it, as I have not yet reached a point in my own ability that I’m really making use of texture and shading, save some prototypical charcoal shading. I’m just starting to “get” shading – texture is still somewhat beyond me.

In chapter four, “The Illusion of Light”, Dodson actually hit upon something that I was familiar with from photography, which is tonal relationships and reduction. Creative use of focus can abstract an image into basic tonal relationships that can then be more effectively drawn: it returns to the merit of non-photorealistic art, which I am a proponent of. If drawing a snowy landscape (as in Dodson’s example), it is not necessary to draw every tree and detail of the piece – in fact, more the opposite. You end up bogged down in details that the viewer’s eye would gloss over anyway. By reducing the image to tonalities and shape, you retain the idea of the landscape without miring the eye in unnecessary detail. You can then more easily draw focus to the elements YOU want. This is the purpose (or one of them, anyway) of depth of field in photography, and is just as valid an artistic element in drawing or other visual arts.

Worth noting in Dodson’s particular method of drawing (which he readily admits to, and even discusses at the end of chapter 3) is the use of slight exaggeration of form for artistic or dramatic effect. Unless you are insisting upon photo-realism in the image, a certain amount of exaggeration will creep in, so why not embrace that fact and choose where that exaggeration will go? If the subject of your drawing is tall and thin, a certain amount of angularity to his figure probably makes sense, elements that can generally be seen in the shoulders, the set of the jaw, and the elbows. Neither the author nor I am saying to necessarily make his elbows the size of his head, but a slightly more angular, pronounced joint will probably work well to establish the concept of the individual’s figure more effectively than sweating over whether it is precisely accurate.

I keep returning to the subject of exaggeration, conceptualization, and the need for non-photorealistic style in drawing for a variety of reasons, most of which stem well beyond the scope of Keys to Drawing or this annotation. There is certainly a place of photorealistic art, and I have the utmost respect for the artists that pull it off, especially in an imaginary work (Alex Ross, for instance). That said, in this era of computer generated photorealistic art, there is still a very valid and necessary role for non-photorealistic art. The eye views it differently, and draws different information from it than it would in a photorealistic variation. Additionally, the mind tends to retain more information from non-photorealistic art than it does with its photorealistic counterpart. By engaging the mind to process the more abstracted image, it creates a more concrete impression in the synapses of the brain. I’m digressing, however, and getting further away from my point: despite my background in photography, I am more interested in abstraction and non-photorealism than otherwise.

It is my interest in abstraction that motivates my desire to create imaginary worlds, whether is in comics, games, traditional artwork, or cartoons (or even in writing, though I haven’t done any creative writing in quite some time). I call it an interest in creative media, because it is too broad to be restricted any further than that. With this in mind, I would say that if I was pressed to recommend just one book on drawing, I would probably choose Keys to Drawing over Betty Edwards’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. What it comes down to is that Betty’s book teaches you to draw objectively (not exclusively, but that does seem to be the focus), while Bert’s book teaches you to the tools to draw, and lets you make the choice of how objective or subjective you wish to be. Of course, I don’t really have to choose just one, so really, I recommend both.

Dodson, Bert. Keys to Drawing. Cincinnati: North Light Books, 1985.

After my annotation of The Dream Hunters, it should be abundantly obvious that I am a huge fan of Yoshitaka Amano’s work. To say that he is my favorite living artist goes without saying, and could possibly be compared to saying the sky is blue, or that Bush is an idiot: all of these statements can be found to be true with only the barest hint of research. Of course, that is neither here nor there, and really only serves as a way to justify just how much I’m going rave about Amano in this annotation.

The biggest irony to me, however, is that no matter how much this paper raves, the essay written by Hiroshi Unno in this book still surpasses it in extremity. He quite literally declares Amano’s work the ultimate blending of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, American and European comics, and traditional japanese manga and ukiyo-e. This is roughly akin to saying that Amano makes the best Amano-esque works, since he’s really the only one currently blending all of those styles. I don’t really understand why Unno bothered. The essay is at the end of a rather large compendium of Amano’s work from the past twenty years: by the point we reach the essay, we already know Amano is fantastic, so why is it necessary to write such a pandering follow-up? Perhaps it’s a cultural difference, but it really did feel like an unneeded ego-stroke to me.

The bright side, of course, is that it is just one essay, and really has no impact on the actual work in the book. The rest of the book is remarkably lacking in anything written — there are titles and basic print information, but even that is in Japanese most of the time (makes it hard for those of us who don’t understand kanji to glean anything more than the date). Of course, this doesn’t hinder my enjoyment of the artwork in any way. Short of trying to be ironic in his titles, it doesn’t really matter what the actual title is, so much as the content of the picture.

All of the works in this book are pieces that he has turned into prints (the subtitle of the book, in fact, is “The Complete Prints of Yoshitaka Amano”). In 1991, he began getting into the field of printmaking, and has been using it as his medium of choice for over a decade. It is interesting to get to see works from different points in his career compared side by side, and really get to see first hand how much his abilities as a printmaker have grown. His earlier works (circa 1991, 1992) are far simpler, using more solid colors and direct lines, while the majority of his 1993-1997 work gets significantly more complex and active, creating more robust worlds and detailed costumes and characters. His latest work (1997-2003) is extremely complex, utilizing gradients and subtle nuances of color and line to create works that are arguably TOO busy to fully appreciate.

I will be the first to admit, my favorites are the ones from the 1993-1997 era. They are in my opinion the perfect balance between form, color, and complexity. This is the period that he did most of his character design work for the anime Vampire Hunter D as well as his work on Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan). Some great examples of this period are prints 451 and 452 (the actual names are in Japanese kanji). These are conceptual artwork he did for Final Fantasy 3. 451 shows an image of a girl in a red outfit perched atop a giant, gargoyle-ish robot, looking out over a vast technological city. The robot, and all parts of technology are monotone, greys, blacks, and occasionally perhaps a tinge of sepia for highlight. The girl is colorful (green-blonde hair, and a flamboyantly red costume complete with arm length gloves), as are the almost festive hot air balloons floating in the sky. This combination itself is rather pleasing on its own, but becomes all the more relevant when you are aware of the background of that world: it is a world with fairly advanced steam technology, as well as long-dormant magic that is being re-awakened and harnessed to create something called “magitek” (a hybrid of magic and technology). The aspects of the technological world that have a magical aspect are the same aspects that have color within the picture.

Print 452 is a one-off of the girl and robot specifically. It also uses this monochrome-technology/color-magic concept, but focuses more on providing detail to the robot. It is in 3/4 view (looking at the machine from slightly above and in front of it), and allows you to see both the legwork on the bottom half of the robot as well as the cockpit on the top. Overall, the machine is remarkably well thought out, without getting into too much technical detail. The legs are splayed and stable, with the body resting firmly on them, while the cockpit is small yet functional, with a few humanistic touches, such as small fins rising up on either side of the body, and a windshield to help deflect wind and debris when traveling. All in all, it is very utilitarian, and suits the “Imperial/militaristic” theme of its in-game creator (the Empire). What really makes it a great image is that it succeeds in actually creating the sense of something that would actually be used, something that makes sense for the given world, regardless of whether it’s physically possible in our own reality. This is the sign of good concept art: it doesn’t have to be real, but it does have to be reasonable, which is an important distinction to have.

Another series of prints that succeed in being reasonable without necessarily being real would be his sequence of angels or angel-like beings (once again, the titles are in Japanese). The angels are beautiful and ethereal, with flowing bodies that seem suited to the notion of angels. What really sets these apart from most depictions of angels that I see is how he does the wings. Most arts that bother showing the body-wing connection really seem to just graft them to the shoulder blades and call it done. As can be seen in print 61, the wings of Amano’s angels seem much more connected, more natural, more believable (as far as wings on a human body can be believed at any rate, which returns us to the real vs reasonable argument). They slope down the body in much the same way that our arms do, which makes eminently more sense for allowing them to fold up against the back when at rest. While the more common “grafted” method is more akin to a bird’s folded wing, that choice does not really make as much sense for an upright being (bird wings fold onto the back of the bird… if the bird’s back was upright, that method would not allow the wings to truly rest). Amano’s choice seems a far more functional one for the type of being he is drawing.

Something I’ve noticed in Amano’s most recent works (circa 2001) is that he’s started to work in a lot more concrete, saturated color. Prior works tend to have a more wispy, almost sketchy style, with colors that are bit more watered down. That is one thing I actually liked from Unno’s essay: he points out this style and finally puts into words what I’ve been feeling about it: he creates worlds as if they were underwater. It perfectly explains the melding of solid and fluid lines. The majority of Amano’s work is in this fashion. It is not until his more recent works that an entirely more saturated and concrete style begins to appear, a good example of which is print 900 (2001), which is an image of a geisha-like woman (it is also the cover of the book). Her hair is far more saturated than most, as are the flowers and ribbons in it. Her lips are a vivid red, her eyes demure and rimmed with eyeliner. Her robes are a light pink with a golden floral pattern, and feels more concrete than earlier works in a way that I can’t really put a finger on. I suspect it has something to do with the clear lines to the flowers in the robe.

Something that Amano has done for each Final Fantasy game is develop a silhouette image used as the logo on the title screen. Unfortunately, none of these images are in this book. That said, there is some work he did in a similar style that are really quite appealing. Prints 323 through 329 are done in this style, starring Kingyohime (Princess Goldfish) from another series he did. They are a single shade of vivid red, and are the epitome of his “water woman” motif. The upper portion of the woman is vivid, and white like the background, with just a faint edge giving her form. Her hair and her dress are what is colored, her hair floating around her, and her dress flowing down to an amorphous form that is sometimes like an ornate fish tail, other times billowing clouds or waves. They are prints that I would love to have hanging in my house.

This is a fantastic collection of artwork, and well worth the money to pick up. There are some images I wish they had printed a bit larger, as I feel that some detail was lost because of it, but on the whole I am very impressed with the quality of this book. The paper is high quality, and the printing top-notch. I would definitely recommend it to any art lover, especially to anyone who enjoys Amano’s style. I may be a bit of a fanboy when it comes to his work, but that is because it genuinely deserves that level of appreciation. I sincerely feel that in the future his work will be counted as some of the finest of this era, much in the same way that we laud Rembrandt, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo now.

Amano, Yoshitaka. Amano. New York: Harper Design International, 2003.

From what I understand, Art & Fear is an often recommended book at Vermont College. After reading it, I can fully understand why — it is succinct, realistic, and to the point. Instead of dancing around the concept of art, it views it as a very real part of people’s lives, and a valid profession to pursue, and deals directly with the concerns and fears that keep people from actually doing what they WANT to do. If more books about the creative process in bookstores were this straightforward, I think we would see a lot more people pursuing jobs they would actually be happy in.

We all make excuses from time to time. We all procrastinate some of the time (some more than others), and we all occasionally have trouble starting new projects, no matter how much we love what we’d be doing if we only STARTED it. What I found particularly useful about Art & Fear is that it points this fact out and tells us to get over it. This is not new information by any means, but it is still useful to have it reinforced in a written fashion. Regardless of whether or not their opinion should actually be listened to, our society places weight and value to published opinions, so it is very worthwhile to have what SHOULD BE (but often isn’t) common sense collected and placed in a written form.

One of the central points of the book is to destroy the illusion that art is a heroic or romantic endeavor. I absolutely agree: the image of the starving artist is not something that should be idealized — no one wants to be poor and wondering how they’ll pay the rent next month, and the people who try to effect that image generally have trust funds backing them up. It completely misses the point of WHY the genuinely “starving artists” came up with X, Y, or Z great piece of art: hunger is a POWERFUL motivation to actually get work done. Instead of sitting around talking about the nature of art, they were busy creating it, because that’s the only way the bills will get paid.

Another central topic of the book is to stop worrying so much about other people’s opinion of your art, and to just do it for yourself. I both agree and disagree about this. A commission can still be art: if not, we should be discrediting most of the most famous artworks throughout history, as the majority were commissioned works. In those circumstances, yes, I can understand taking into account the opinions of the commissioner. As far as making works for yourself: opinions should be listened to, but not necessarily obeyed. They are, after all, opinions, not orders. Just because someone (or even many people) don’t like something, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve exactly the function you intended. I suppose in the grander scheme, if you aren’t comfortable enough to make your own decisions over what opinions have merit to YOUR intentions and which don’t, then it’s better to just ignore them all.

One of the things that I find interesting about Art & Fear is that they explicitly avoid discussing creativity. They address it only long enough to say that they will not be discussing it, and had been assiduously avoiding even using the word for most of the book. Frankly, I think this really helped them keep their focus in the book, as well as keeping it more real and pragmatic rather than abstract and theoretical. Discussing creativity definitely has its place, but upon inspection, that place is not not in a discussion about making art. It’s a bit like talking to an aerospace engineer about the dreams of going into space that motivated them to get into the field: it’s certainly rewarding, but doesn’t do much for the task at hand.

I found myself identifying with a lot of what was said in the book. I am extremely critical of my own work, overly so, and allow myself to become paralyzed not just by the fear of other people not liking my work, but also the fear that they WOULD like my work. I am in many ways more scared of succeeding than I am of failure. With failure, I can console myself by saying I gave it my best shot, but that I’m just not very good at it (or optimistically, good at it yet). With success, however, I feel burdened with a form of responsibility, the expectation from others (and myself) that since I succeeded once, I should be able to continue to succeed. I am in turn deathly afraid of creating art as a profession, for fear that others might have to rely on my abilities. It has been said that a perfectly good way to destroy a hobby is to make it a profession, and I think part of what is behind that statement is that there is the additional burden of responsibility of others relying on your work that hinders your enjoyment of it.

Both overall and broken down to its particulars, I think this was a well written and extremely valuable book to read. I would heartily recommend it to anyone exploring any sort of artistic endeavor. It is the best kind of self-help book: the kind that tells you to get out of your own way and just DO it. There’s no hokey magical method to suddenly make fantastic, wonderful art, and the sooner we accept that, the better.

Bayles, David; Orland, Ted. Art & Fear. Santa Cruz: The Image Continuum, 1993.

It is very easy to get caught up in the notion being an artist in such a way that you fail to make any art at all. The idea of being a famous avant garde artist is far more romantic than actually making avant garde art, and as such is far more alluring than simply making art whatever way you can, whatever way makes the most sense to you. That idea is the basis behind Magic Worlds of Fantasy: it showcases four relatively unknown artists that the author had come across who ignored the idea of an artist, and simply made art.

Before I get into talking about the book, I should mention that none of these artists were using drawing as their medium, so really the artwork gains more of its relevance in the act of creation and the philosophy behind the book more than discovering drawing technique or style that I like. That said, there is a lot of value to be found in this sort of book. I find that it is very easy to get wrapped up in the “proper” way of doing things, so a book that says to find something I enjoy and then make art out of that is really quite delightful.

The author, David Douglas Duncan, was a good friend of Pablo Picasso. As such, when he traveled around the world on his own artistic journeys, other people would approach him to ask about Picasso, and (occasionally) to bring gifts or art to be passed along. It was through this process that he came across several artists who were not well known by anyone, and really pursued art purely for their own sake. They might never have ended up in a gallery or museum, though their art was certainly good enough, because it wasn’t their purpose.

The book opens with a brief essay about the author’s relationship with Picasso, including a collection of “posters” Picasso did for some of his friends, each one with the same elements but each unique and individualized. The idea of Picasso’s house is really quite appealing: when he opened his doors, he opened them wide, to any who could claim his friendship. Diplomats, priests, paupers, circus performers, it didn’t matter. If anyone took offense to this panoply, no one mentioned it: a friend of Pablo was a friend of theirs. There is so much to be said for this idea, the idea of a space where individuals of varying fields could all be comfortable and interact regardless of social status. It’s an idea that I personally would love to foster, but have no idea how to go about doing this.

The first artist in the book is a housewife in England, who used scratchboard to create fantastic, dreamlike creatures and locations. Her work was clearly her own, though I could see some references to early Chinese art in some of her linework. Born in war-torn Berlin, she invented robust dream worlds in her mind in order to block out the bombed out buildings around her, and continued to tell stories and draw from this imaginary world once they fled to Switzerland. She discovered scratchboard when she was 8 or 9, and fell in love with the medium, working in it ever since. Most of her work was made to accompany the stories that she would tell her own children.

The second artist highlighted was a retired psychologist who would go out into the woods and find interesting patterns in the bark of various trees, and photograph them. Some of them are extremely abstract, to the point where it is not entirely clear whether it is a photograph or a painting. Wild swirling mishmashes of color combined with variegated texture to create unique images. As a psychologist, he had always been fascinated by finding order in chaos, so when he retired from psychology, he picked up a camera and became fascinated with the patterns and order and shapes found in the bark of trees.

The third artist is the most fascinating to me. Hsueh Shao-Tang was a tailor in pre-Communist China, and fled to escape Mao’s army. He was then conscripted by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army, and forced to serve in Taiwan for several years. After finally being discharged, he trained as a chef, and became a chef for diplomatic envoys to foreign countries. The author discovered his work while visiting the house of an ambassador in Switzerland, where he had been master chef for several years. The particular style of art that he does is what is particularly fascinating to me… he collects canceled stamps, and cuts them up into small pieces, which he uses to create elaborate and detailed mosaics. Some of the work is truly impressive, and is clearly enhanced by the texture and variation that is provided through the medium, such as a mosaic dragon he created, where the texture of the scales is created through the shape and color gradation of the stamps he used. It’s absolutely brilliant work.

The fourth and final artist showcased in this book is a widowed Baroness who likes to wander through old growth forests barefoot accompanied by a great dane and her camera. She has some really phenomenal nature photography, which is my own personal hobby. None of it is necessarily innovative — to a certain extent, a photograph of a cobweb is a photograph of a cobweb — but there is an underlying voice that permeates all of her work, which reinforces the basis of art: there are only so many variations of a still life: what makes it unique, expressive, and “art” is the addition of the individual’s viewpoint and creative voice, the focus that they choose to apply to it.

On the larger subject of art, I thought this was an interesting book, worth the time to read it. On the specific subject of drawing, it’s certainly less relevant, but I still feel my time was well spent by reading it. No art (if you could call my chicken scratchings art) exists in a vacuum, and viewing alternative mediums definitely helps energize my mind as to what things I could do.

Duncan, David Douglas. Magic Worlds of Fantasy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

Originally published in 1972 as a companion follow-up to his BBC television series, John Berger’s Ways of Seeing is a remarkable and interesting book from start to finish. Even the cover is nontraditional, ignoring the standard need for a cover separate from the rest of the book. Instead, they simply took an excerpt from the book, and used that as the cover. This establishes the sort of book this is from the very get-go: challenging the current deified, over-intellectualized view of art in modern society.

Standards are meant to be a groundwork, a starting point to grow from. They are not meant to be a constraint, a restriction as to the only “proper” methodology, but that is exactly what they have become. To fall back to an art medium I’m more familiar with, in photography one of the most commonly referenced “standards” or “laws” is the law of thirds, which is a guideline for composing your image. There are plenty of reasons to use this guideline, not the least of which is our natural predisposition to “sacred geometry” which a thirds-based image tends to satisfy. That said, photographers can end up trapped by this law, and become incapable of doing anything but this. They become chained to it, and often become incapable of appreciating any image that deviates from it. It is not until these deviations, these abnormalities become accepted by the artistic elite that they become accepted as a worthwhile technique. This has been my sentiment for quite some time, and I found Berger’s essays on this subject both cogent and topical. In particular, I found the statistics provided by Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel on public perceptions of museums and art particularly interesting, as well as his discussion of the historical causes of this shift.

Interestingly, some art students argue that this shift never took place, and that this was always the nature of art. These are also the same art students that declare that “art is dead” so ardently, which I personally feel is the cliché battle cry of those who are afraid to contribute to it. Once again falling back to photography, I can pretty safely argue that this shift from art for art’s sake and as a commercial entity into the deified realm restricted only to the social elite is entirely within the realm of possibility, and with historical context as referenced by Berger, seems a virtual certainty. I have been witnessing the same progression in the field of photography for most of my life, and have discussed the topic with others who have been in the field for well over 40 years. With the advent of inexpensive scanners and printers, it is easier than ever before to accurately reproduce a photographic work, with or without the consent of the photographer. This has forced professional photographers to undergo a shift of their own: they must either shift into charging for their time and creativity rather than on a per-print basis, or face financial extinction through individuals purchasing a single print and duplicating it themselves. In order for this shift to work, however, there must also be a cultural shift in mindset to view hiring a photographer as a service, not as a product: you are purchasing the photographer’s creativity, not the print. This is, in my mind, incredibly similar to the cultural shift that painters underwent when lithographs and other methods to reproduce their art became available. The artists needed a way to justify their profession, and the social elite needed a way to continue to separate themselves from the masses, hence the shift to the importance of having an “original”, and to have the name of artist mean nearly as much (or more) as the painting itself.

I think I may have talked myself into a corner here, so allow me to clarify what I mean: the art community was forced into a paradigm shift in order to survive. This is pragmatic and understandable. While it is unfortunate, I do not consider this shift necessarily a bad thing. What I do consider bad is the way the social elite took this shift and bent it towards their own purposes — namely in further stratifying themselves from the rest of society.

As you can probably guess, the first essay in Ways of Seeing really struck a chord. I’ll let it rest for now, and instead move on to the rest of the book, which decidedly also merits discussion. His second essay, which was a montage of images gathered to form a visual essay was interesting. I found it directly relevant to one of his later essays on depictions of women in art, and I found both essays to be significantly less heavy-handed and accusatory than other essays and articles I’ve read about the topic. (While the objectification of women is a damnable thing, taking an accusatory, hateful tone about it is quite possibly even less effective or useful than simply doing nothing. Demanding reparations does nothing more than encourage resentment.) In particular, the use of female sexuality in commercial art is really rather directly pointed out, and the distinctions he makes between being naked, and being nude, and it explains my own personal choice to prefer the direct earnestness and honesty of an image of someone who is naked versus a picture of a nude. That is not to say that nudes don’t have their own place, and the objectification of the human form (male or female) can be used towards great effect as a method of artistic abstraction, much in the same way that a building can be made a thing of abstract shape and form through perspective, becoming something that is no longer a building (or in the case of nudes, a person). But as far as portraits, or human expression is concerned, I would far prefer to see someone naked because that is the most primitive, honest expression of themselves, than to see someone posed and nude because someone else wishes it.

I’m going to skip over the essay on the nature of art as a method of proving your possession of something else (a ship, a piece of land, a prize animal, a spouse or child, et cetera), because I feel like I’ve already addressed this in my discussion of the first essay, and go on directly to the essay on the use of art in advertising. This brought up some interesting points both in favor and against the ways art is used to sell things other than art, as well as how “corporate art” can still be considered art. Here’s my take on it, after reading his essay: of course it’s still art, and of course the social elite brand it as “selling out”. Use of art in advertising brings art to the masses, countering the whole push to keep art as a tool of social stratification. Whether it is through direct use, or through emulation of a classic piece of art, it allows the masses to have access to works that they might otherwise never see, and never appreciate or be enriched by. There was significantly more use of art in advertising and publicity in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, at which point there was a backlash, when the notion of use of art in advertising was a form of selling out and devalued the merit of the art really gained enough momentum to be noticeable. By the late 90s to now, there has been significantly less use (though it still does happen), and I can’t help but feel that this is part of the over-intellectual stratification, an attempt to retake art as solely the purview of the elite. Looking through the images included in the essay, while dated in composition, it is obvious just how much more direct influence prior art had on advertising compared to modern day.

Frankly, I blame the academic institution at large. While there are always exceptions, I find it remarkable and frightening how many schools of “art” I have seen that do nothing more than churn out more embittered, brainwashed pseudo-intellectuals that serve to do nothing more than maintain an entirely unnecessary stratification fostered by their professors (who themselves have been ensnared in this mindset). They obscure this stratification by hiding behind muddy definitions-through-lack-of-definitions of art, trapping their students in the circle of asking “what is art?” Well, here is a definition: art is a method of expression. That is my definition, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all a definition it needs. That, of course, is not acceptable to those who wish to deify art, because that definition intrinsically makes it accessible to anyone who wishes to express themselves. It returns art to the masses.

Mind you, I am not making a distinction between “good” art and “bad” art. That is a largely subjective arena, and can really only objectively be discussed on the merits of particular techniques, and subjectively on whether you (the individual) like it or not. Really, whether art is good or bad does not matter to the larger definition of art itself — the artist either expresses themselves well, or they don’t. They either have good technique, or they don’t. (I am well aware that nothing is truly binary, which is why I generally place things in three categories, things I like, things I don’t like, and things that I may not like but respect. But for the sake of the discussion, I’m keeping it generalized.)

John Berger has certainly raised some very interesting subjects, in a coherent fashion that are still just as relevant today as it was when it was written 30 years ago. I would gladly recommend this to anyone interested in art (and in fact already have). Considering just how topical this book remains, it really serves to prove just how hard it is to break through the established mindset. I can only hope that at some point, it ceases to be topical, and instead becomes historical.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1973.