REFLECTION

In "Ways of Seeing", John Berger talks about art through four propositions: reproduction, nude image, wealth and advertising. Berger repeatedly mentions the existence of "aura" in art, which refers to the artist's spirit, mystery and authenticity when the work was born. It is an "halo" that can not be copied and accompanied by a sense of distance. The only thing the audience can do is to look at such halo and constantly try to approach the general existence of the core. Berger skillfully uses the media of television to constantly shape the situation, trying to make the audience understand how the feeling mode of human society has changed.

Reproduction technology and photography technology make art readily available. Once religious paintings were generally placed in religious places for people to make pilgrimages. The invention of photography wiped out the spatial consciousness and architectural memory of the relationship between art and it. Those once enlightening arts have become symbols of consumption. They are no longer waiting to be pilgrimed. Ironically, in the era of mechanical reproduction, people have another strange longing for the "original" compared with the past. The mass media makes the images of these works of art so popular that almost everyone knows, but it also highlights the original value and mysterious value of the works of art itself in a disguised form.

Berger added that another charm, the birth of another "glamour": the power of advertising. In "Ways of Seeing", he used a bottle of perfume to criticize the influence of capitalist economy on art. This bottle of perfume is luxurious and fashionable in the poster. It is owned by a young model and is at the center of vision. Shiver all over though not cold, but the bottle of perfume was put into production line. The work of the women workers was numb, repetitive and mechanical. A bottle of perfume represents a desire of a buyer, and ever-fount of desire is in mass production. Humans are forced to fantasize that they are "at the center of the world" and are also embarrassed by this illusion. In the capital society, the tradition of art is used to the philosophy of advertising, which is another new and developing belief system.