A Research On John Berger’s Visual Art Theory

John Berger conducted research on visual art guided by the concept of visuality in visual culture studies.He not only rethought artists and art works in history from the perspective of ideology,but also placed the process of visual art from creation to acceptance in the visual culture transition from rational viewing to perceptual viewing to explore the changes and issues that occurred therein.Berger attempted to construct a social culture that focuses on the living conditions of the public through visual art and promote social change.This paper takes John Berger’s theory of visuality in art as the research object,and studies the theory from the four aspects:background,theoretical composition,critical practice and theoretical reflection.The first chapter summarizes the background of John Berger’s theory of visuality in art.The paper analyzes the background of Berger’s theory from three aspects:international politics,modernity transformation of visual art and philosophical transformation of visual culture based on the social and academic conditions of the 20 th century in which Berger lived.Berger’s views on ideological interference in art were influenced by the left-wing ideological trends of the 20 th century.He emphasized that art should focus on social reality.It also influenced Berger’s exploration of the conditions and scope of socialist visual art.In the modernity transformation of visual art,new visual art forms dominated by photography gradually replaced traditional forms such as painting and the masses also participated in visual art.Berg pay attention to the influence of photography and the participation of the masses on traditional visual art,as well as the new possibilities that visual art possesses in constructing social culture.In the philosophical transformation of visual culture,the understanding of viewing has changed from the rational gaze of the subject and the object to the Perceptual viewing of the subject and the object.Foucault and Althusser explored power and ideology in viewing,which led Berger to focus on the relationship between 他the bodily perception in visual art and society.The second chapter summarizes the concrete composition of John Berger’s theory of visual arts.The first part analyzes "seeing" and "being seen".it discusses the unique two-stage viewing behavior of visual art.It also discusses the development and changes in the meaning of visuality.Based on the discussion of visual culture,Berger understands visuality as the socialization of things in viewing.He integrated theoretical content from other stages to understand visuality.Berger combines Mitchell’s image theory to place images in the social and historical context to explore their significance in reality and pays attention to the vitality and love they contain.The second part focuses on the visual subject as the creator in visual arts and explores the sensory perception and the influence of social history on the visual subject’s worldview,as well as the self-initiated construction of creators when creators demonstrates the invisibility of things through their visibility.It also examines how photography reduces the visual subject’s intervention in viewing.The third part focuses on the image itself and places it in the creator’s creative process and the viewer’s viewing effect to study the visual discourse of image art.It clarifies the visual form and effect that Berger valued when he faces the image from three aspects:timporal-spatial construction in the image,the body metaphor mainly depicted by the nude body in the image and the meaning of the photo under the narrative mode.The third chapter summarizes Berger’s critical practice of his theory of visual arts.After clarifying the problems that Berger raised regarding the application of visual arts in today’s social reality and people’s living conditions,the chapter explores how Berger applied his theory to provide solutions to these problems and how he used them to construct the culture of society in visual arts according to his requirements,awakening people’s real demands.This chapter is mainly divided into three parts:reshaping the marginalized groups that capitalism ignores with life experience,constructing the subjectivity of creators,image characters and viewers through narrative and perception and resisting history’s denial and disregard of human beings with the existence of groups.The fourth chapter elaborates on the value and reflection of John Berger’s theory of visual art.From a value perspective,Berger’s theory reveals the dialectical relationship between ideology and visual art.His theory also enriches the new experiences and possibilities of visual art in the era of mechanical reproduction through exploration in the field of photography.At the same time,his theory proposes specific directions and methods for the construction of social culture through visual art.Reflection on Berger’s theory can help us realize that Berger lacks attention to the tradition and aesthetic experience of visual arts.He supports art that displays and expresses social reality.Although he expresses concern for the public,art is still under the restriction of political ideology.Berger does not reject the use of language in visual images,but he refuses to limit the meaning of visual images to language.However,he lacks a further understanding of the relationship between visual art and language.