Fine Arts Center

           In Chapter 7 of the Ways of Seeing, Berger discusses the connection between art and advertisements. He also discusses how in our current culture, images are used more often than any other time in history to convey messages (129). Robert Polidori’s Looking East, 42^nd Street, New York displays the thoughts explored by Berger in one image. Looking East shows a collection of advertisements in New York City strewn across various buildings in this crowded metropolis. Berger asserts that this type of advertising is viewed to be symbols of freedom (131). He says that these ads show the “freedom of choice for the purchaser [and] freedom of enterprise for the manufacturer” (131). He describes that it is one of the first images of the free world and of capitalism (131). Polidori’s image forces me as the viewer to image a fictional America; an America that is very different from the country I know and love. It forces me to think of the communist view of America during the Cold War; of a selfish, over-consuming, and wasted state of impurity. Berger describes the reason for advertisements and capitalism as a whole in a very subliminal and, albeit, negative way. He describes the modern American vision by those outside our borders as being obsessed with purchasing and upgrading our status in the capitalist world (131, 132). He describes the influence of ads as being those that “proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more”(131) and by doing so we strive to become “enviable”(131). The artist’s image seems to have a tone of a sexual nature as well.

             The second image I included is a zoomed-in shot of one of the advertisements. This ad caught my gaze, in particular, as I stared into the picture. This ad in itself is a work of art. The ad shows a man of peak physical condition playing a drum and dancing wildly. The ad provokes one’s thought to immediately imagine movement. This, in my opinion, is what makes it a successful work of art and advertisement. The man, being half-naked, also supplies the viewer with an almost unconscious thought of sexuality and allurement. This is most likely quite intentional by the artist. Berger describes a viewer’s experience of allurement in this image as feeling “overwhelmed by the marvelous simplicity of the familiar sexual mechanism” (59). The nakedness of the man adds to the effectiveness of the ad and the entire image overall.

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1977. Print.