Ways of Seeing

Harmondsworth & London: British Broadcasting Corporation & Penguin Books, 1972. Stiff Wrappers. Fine. Scarce true First Edition ("First published 1972) of this provocative art history text, based on the BBC television series. The first hardcover edition, published in New York, appeared only the following year. Crown 8vo (195 x 129mm): 170pp, with numerous illustrations. Publisher's off-white stiff card wrappers printed in black and priced 60p. Tightly bound (lightly read, if at all) and clean throughout, a superior example of a fragile book. Ways of Seeing, Berger's influential art text, was initially conceived as a series of four television episodes "The series was ground-breaking in its use of the TV format to introduce aspects of a materialist analysis of art to a non-specialist audience. The book of the series was constructed in a similar spirit of popular pedagogy and subsequently became a key introductory text in art colleges in Britain and the USA. Among the topics discussed in the book are the relationship between oil painting and private property, the sexual politics of the nude, the rhetoric of advertising images, and the impact on art of mechanical reproduction. . . . The book's account of the nude has been particularly influential and the analysis of spectatorship and the male gaze on which it is based has since been developed and extended by feminist critics." (Literary Encyclopedia) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).