"The Girl with a Pearl Earring", inspired by John Berger's "Ways of Seeing."

“The Girl With a Pearl Earring” by Vermeer is known to be one of the most famous pieces in history. That is due to the fact that it has been seen everywhere, on t-shirts on mugs on post cards… which helps us recognize this historical piece so easily. When we first lay eyes on it, we immediately assume it is beautiful and that the artist was a genius, however how do we really know that? We as human beings tend to mystify the past and rely only on our previous knowledge forgetting about the time and place of when the painting was created.

In his essay Berger’s definition of the word mystification is described as “the process of explaining away what might otherwise be evident.” Throughout the first chapter Berger argues that artists used to create images based on their reality in order to result in an image that will last longer than what is seen through the physical human eye. However nowadays, images are crated replicated and reproduces everywhere we go, therefore we become familiar with famous artists and art pieces due to our surroundings as well as what we are taught to know. Berger’s main argument in the first chapter is about how humans mystify works of art from the past by making assumptions of their own such as “ beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, and taste…” Berger also considers the original audience to be much more appreciative of a piece of art from the past because the original audience is fully aware of the context and the reason as to why the piece of art was actually made.  We see the painting as beautiful because we are “taught” to think in that way, the original audience sees it as influential and powerful, leading to the fact that the reproduction of an image loses its essence of power. Moreover, the first chapter of Berger’s book stresses on the fact that art is exploiting it is no longer unique, we see it everywhere it has no more weight of meaning.

I strongly agree with Berger’s arguments in his first chapter. I believe that art is no longer a fixed thing; it is caught in the webs of meaning. Art goes deeper than beauty, form and texture; it is powerful and personal to the eye of the beholder. However, I do believe that the beauty of art lies in the different interpretations of the many observers that walk past the one same work of art.