A Study On John Berger's Method Of Visual Arts Criticism

With the critical practice of British art critic John Berger's criticism of modern and contemporary visual art,this paper elucidates the ideological origin of Berger's art criticism from a historical perspective,thus to establish the overall impression and objective evaluation of Berger's art criticism method.First,this paper will review the historical context in which John Berger's approach to visual art criticism emerged,focusing on three aspects of the historical emergence:socio-political,cultural arts,and aesthetic theory.After a comprehensive understanding of John Berger's criticism of visual arts,this paper analyzed the application of his method according to the different characteristics of Berger's criticism in different periods.In the earlier period,during the Cold War,Berger took the side of the Soviet Union and used realist criticism as his main method of criticism.He rejected the aesthetic tendencies of modernism and the critical approach of the formalism,and promoted the art of the kitchen sink.After entering the mid 1960s,Berger's visual art criticism became more and more mature,he paid attention to the value of modern art again,and used the method of ideological criticism to criticize the Capitalist Society,gradually formed a personalized method of ideological criticism.By the end of the 1980s,after the collapse of the Soviet Union,the political structure of the world had changed significantly,and in the later years Berger used a critical method that was mainly a combination of phenomenology and sociology,the aim is to tap the revolutionary potential of new media,such as photography and film,and to resist the injustice of the capitalist world.Throughout Berger's writing career,Marxism has always been the unswerving theoretical underpinnings of his methodology.With the change of the international political situation and the shift of the social principal contradiction,Berger's understanding and absorption of Marxism present different characteristics at different stages of his art criticism.Under the guidance of the fundamental tenet of Marxism,the method of Berger's art criticism is characterized by the spirit of humanism.In addition,Berger's method of art criticism embodies the phenomenological way of experience.Although Berger did not establish a precise and broad theoretical system,his art criticism is a creative academic exploration,which breaks through the limitation of the study of fine art in traditional art history,it opens up the diversity of the critical methods in art research.