Visual perception precedes words. A child sees and recognizes before they can speak. However, visual perception also precedes words in another sense. It is visual perception that defines our position in the world around us; we interpret this world with words, yet words can never negate the fact that we are surrounded by it.

The relationship between what we see and what we know is never clearly defined. John Berger's book, critiquing traditional Western art aesthetics, reveals well-hidden ideologies behind images. By emphasizing the way we look at paintings, the author ultimately changes the way we look at images in general.

Fifty years after the book's first publication, the questions it raises are still relevant and engage aesthetic theory and art history. It is published in over 30 languages and is based on the BBC television series Ways of Seeing.

CRITICS HAVE SAID

The book that turned attention to fields of cultural studies that are now commonplace. Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling.

Berger has the ability to transcend the obfuscation of professional art critics... He is a liberator of images. And once we allow the paintings to speak to us, we can appreciate them more easily and correctly. Peter Fuller, Arts Review.

One of the most influential thinkers of our time. The Observer.