John Berger 1972
In 1969 Kenneth Clark's Civilisation hit the BBC airwaves in color. Clark, art historian to the Queen, made an ambitious and popular survey of Western civ. He took Britain and then America on a visual tour of European art monuments. In the comfort of their living rooms, people who couldn't or didn't travel the world had front row seats.
Clark infused a warm humanism with his personal view of history. Inspiring at times, his Civilisation was bound to the class system he was part of. His part being the top. Clark's idealism was planted in the A to B, simple to complex, peasant to king, man to God social Darwinism. The cream was always separating to the top. Cross cultural or intersectional conversations about the meaning within the images took a backseat as the victors made art history.
Kenneth Clark on the set of Civilisation
Younger upstart John Berger replied with pocket knife in hand taking art out of the holy edifice of the museum and putting it in the public's lap. Berger's 1972 Ways of Seeing put contemporary politics and Marxism on the table. He circumvented the authority from tradition and academia and bargained the power on the side of the viewer. The same decade saw the rise of women who would push the status quo of a male dominated arts and shove in your face gender and biology in the tradition of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Berger was a champion of seeing and hearing. He updated the street and art gallery conversations with a 20th century philosophy and egalitarian sensibility. He put the darling of art history and criticism, Walter Benjamin, on the television screen.
John Berger's Ways of Seeing
John Berger at 90