You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women is developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. WAYS OF SEEING ....SEEING AT NIGHT À LUX E À SOMBRA é sombra ou excesso de sol? ways of seeing ..."The moment, now, had arrived for a Daiquiri," writes Joseph Hergesheimer in his San Cristobal de la Habana. "Seated near the cool drip of the fountain, where a slight stir of air seemed to ruffle the fringed mantone of a bronze dancing Andalusian girl, I lingered over the frigid mixture of Don Bacardi, sugar and a fresh, vivid green lime. "It was a delicate compound, not so good as I was to discover later at the Telegrafo, but still a revelation, and I was devoutly thankful to be sitting at that hour in the Inglaterra with such a drink. It elevated my contentment to an even higher pitch, and, with a detached amusement, I recalled the fact that farther north prohibition was now in effect. Unquestionably the cocktail on my table was a dangerous agent, for it held in its shallow glass bowl slightly incrusted with undissolved sugar the power of a contemptuous indifference to fate; it set the mind free of responsibility; obliterating both memory and to-morrow, it gave the heart an adventitious feeling of superiority and momentarily vanquished all the celebrated, the eternal fears." We wonder what they put into Mr. Hergesheimer's Daiquiri. It seems to us a rather optimistic and romantic account of the effect of a single cocktail. One of the reasons why we were reconciled to prohibition was the fact that we invariably felt cheated whenever we read any loving essay about rum. In the theater, too, again and again we saw some character raise a glass to his lips and immediately begin to sing about young love in May if he happened to be the hero, or fall down a flight of steps if he were cast as the low comedian. We tried earnestly enough, but these experiences were never duplicated for us. No songs came to our lips, nor comic tumbles to our feet. Nor did we ever participate in Mr. Hergesheimer's "contemptuous indifference to fate." It was not for us in one cocktail; no, not in many. Occasionally, it was possible to reach a stage where we became acutely conscious of the fact that Armenians were being massacred and that Ireland was not yet free. And later we have known a very persuasive drowsiness. But as for contempt and a feeling of superiority and a freedom from the eternal fears, we never found the right bottle. There was none which opened for us any door of adventure. Once, we remember, while on our way from the office to Seventy-second Street, we rode in the subway to Van Cortlandt Park and, upon being told about it, traveled back to Atlantic Avenue. It was a long ride for a nickel, but it hardly satisfied us as authentic adventure. Even the romantic stories of our friends generally seem to us inadequate. Only to-day A. W. said, "You should have come to the party. We played a new game called 'adverbs.' You send somebody out of the room and choose an adverb, and when she comes back you've got to answer all the questions in the spirit of that adverb. You know rudely, quickly, cryptically, or anything like that. And then Art did a burlesque of the second act of Samson and Delilah and Elaine passed out completely, and every time anybody woke her up she'd say, 'Call me a black and white ambulance.' You had ought to have come." We couldn't have added anything to that party. When it came our turn to answer the questions in the adverb game it would be just our luck to have the chosen word "gracefully" or "seductively" or something like that, and probably the burlesque was no good anyhow unless one could get into the spirit of the thing. That is our traditional failure. Right at the beginning of a party we realize that it is our duty to get gay and put ice down people's backs and all that, and it terrifies us. Whenever a host says "Here, drink some more Scotch and liven up" we have the same sinking feeling that we used to get when one of our former city editors wrote in the assignment book opposite our name: "Go up to the zoo and write me a funny story." The whole trouble with life so far is that too much of it falls into assignments. We're not even content to let our holidays just happen. Instead we mark them down on a calendar, and there they stay as fixed and set as an execution day. There are times, for instance, when we feel like turning over a new leaf and leading a better life and giving up cigarettes, but when we look at the calendar it isn't New Year's at all, but Fourth of July, and so nothing can be done about it. Columbus Day or Washington's Birthday generally comes just about the time we've worked up an enthusiasm for Lincoln, which has to go to waste, and the only strong impulse we ever had to go out and cut loose was spoiled because we noticed that everybody we met was wearing a white flower in his buttonhole and we remembered that it was Mother's Day. There are even times when we don't want to play cards or travel on railroad trains or read the newspapers or go to the movies, but these times never synchronize with Sunday. When we first took up drinking we hoped that this would be one of the avenues of escape from schedule and assignment, but it didn't work out. Even here there were preliminaries and premeditation. First of all, it was necessary to cultivate a taste for the stuff, but that was only a beginning. There were still ceremonies to be complied with. Drunkenness never just descended on anybody like thunderstorm, rain or inspiration. It was not possible to go to sleep sober and wake up and find that somehow or other you had become intoxicated during the night. Always an act of will was required. A fixed determination, "I'm going to get drunk," must first be set, and then the rum has to be ordered and poured out and consumed pretty regularly. In fact, we never could look at a bottle without feeling that the label probably bore the express direction, "Take ten times every hour until relief is obtained." Even before the Volstead act liquor was spiritually a prescription rather than a beverage. We never had the strength of character to get any good out of it. It's a fallacy, of course, to think of a chronic drunkard or a chronic anything as a person of weak will. Indeed, as a matter of fact, his will is so strong that he has been able to marshal all his energies into one channel and to make himself thereby a specialist. In all our life we have never met but two determined men. One took a cold bath every morning and the other got drunk every night.The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing 11 likes Like “History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past” Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.

 All publicity works upon anxiety.

My map of the book: To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.”
The happiness of being envied is glamour.
Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. The power of the glamorous resides in their supposed happiness: the power of the bureaucrat in his supposed authority.” ..the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the SACRIFICIAL LAMB Ways of Seeing" is about the ways we see. How our mind is formed through society and how this conditioning impacts on our perception and, well, what we see in the end.

THE SICK MAN (feebly, but vehemently)—No, you don't. I won't stand for any male nurse. I want Miss Bluchblauer.
THE FAT MAN—I'm not a nurse, exactly.
THE SICK MAN—Who are you?
THE FAT MAN (cheerfully and in a matter of fact tone)—I'm Death.
THE SICK MAN (sinking back on the bed)—That rotten fever's up again. I'm seeing things.
THE FAT MAN (almost plaintively)—Don't you believe I'm Death? Honest, I am. I wouldn't fool you. (He fumbles in his pockets and produces in rapid succession a golf ball, a baseball pass, a G string, a large lump of gold, a receipted bill, two theater tickets and a white mass of sticky confection which looks as though it might be a combination of honey and something—milk, perhaps)—I've gone and left that card case again, but I'm Death, all right.
THE SICK MAN—What nonsense! If you really were I'd be frightened. I'd have cold shivers up and down my spine. My hair would stand on end like the fretful porcupine. I'm not afraid of you. Why, when Sadie Bluchblauer starts to argue about the war she scares me more than you do.
THE FAT MAN (very much relieved and visibly brighter)—That's fine. I'm glad you're not scared. Now we can sit down and talk things over like friends.
THE SICK MAN—I don't mind talking, but remember I know you're not Death. You're just some trick my hot head's playing on me. Don't get the idea you're putting anything over.
THE FAT MAN—But what makes you so sure I'm not Death?
THE SICK MAN—Go on! Where's your black cloak? Where's your sickle? Where's your skeleton? Why don't you rattle when you walk?
THE FAT MAN (horrified and distressed)—Why should I rattle? What do I want with a black overcoat or a skeleton? I'm not fooling you. I'm Death, all right.
THE SICK MAN—Don't tell me that. I've seen Death a thousand times in the war cartoons. And I've seen him on the stage—Maeterlinck, you know, with green lights and moaning, and that Russian fellow, Andreyeff, with no light at all, and hollering. And I've seen other plays with Death—lots of them. I'm one of the scene shifters with the Washington Square Players. This isn't regular, at all. There's more light in here right now than any day since I've been sick.
THE FAT MAN—I always come in the light. Be a good fellow and believe me. You'll see I'm right later on. I wouldn't fool anybody. It's mean.
THE SICK MAN (laughing out loud)—Mean! What's meaner than Death? You're not Death. You're as soft and smooth-talking as a press agent. Why, you could go on a picnic in that make-up.
THE FAT MAN (almost soberly)—I've been on picnics.
THE SICK MAN—You're open and above board. Death's a sneak. You've got a nice face. Yes; you've got a mighty nice face. You'd stop to help a bum in the street or a kid that was crying.
THE FAT MAN—I have stopped for beggars and children.
THE SICK MAN—There, you see; I told you. You're kind and considerate. Death's the cruellest thing in the world.
THE FAT MAN (very much agitated)—Oh, please don't say that! It isn't true. I'm kind; that's my business. When things get too rotten I'm the only one that can help. They've got to have me. You should hear them sometimes before I come. I'm the one that takes them off battlefields and out of slums and all terribly tired people. I whisper a joke in their ears, and we go away, laughing. We always go away laughing. Everybody sees my joke, it's so good.
THE SICK MAN—What's the joke?
THE FAT MAN—I'll tell it to you later.
Enter the Nurse. She almost runs into the Fat Man, but goes right past without paying any attention. It almost seems as if she cannot see him. She goes to the bedside of the patient.
THE NURSE—So, you're awake. You feel any more comfortable?
The Sick Man continues to stare at the Fat Man, but that worthy animated pantomime indicates that he shall say nothing of his being there. While this is on, the Nurse takes the patient's temperature. She looks at it, seems surprised, and then shakes the thermometer.
THE SICK MAN (eagerly)—I suppose my temperature's way up again, hey? I've been seeing things this afternoon and talking to myself.
THE NURSE—No; your temperature is almost normal.
THE SICK MAN (incredulously)—Almost normal?
THE NURSE—Yes; under a hundred.
She goes out quickly and quietly. The Sick Man turns to his fat friend.
THE SICK MAN—What do you make of that? Less than a hundred. That oughtn't to make me see things; do you think so?
THE FAT MAN—Well, I'd just as soon not be called a thing. Up there I'm called good old Death. Some of the fellows call me Bill. Maybe that's because I'm always due.
THE SICK MAN—Rats! Is that the joke you promised me?
THE FAT MAN (pained beyond measure)—Oh, that was just a little unofficial joke. The joke's not like that. I didn't make up the real one. It wasn't made up at all. It's been growing for years and years. A whole lot of people have had a hand in fixing it up—Aristophanes and Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Mark Twain and Rabelais—
THE SICK MAN—Did that fellow Rabelais get in—up there?
THE FAT MAN—Well, not exactly, but he lives in one of the most accessible parts of the suburb, and we have him up quite often. He's popular on account of his after-dinner stories. What I might call his physical humor is delightfully reminiscent and archaic.
THE SICK MAN—There won't be any bodies, then?
THE FAT MAN—Oh, yes, brand new ones. No tonsils or appendixes, of course. That is, not as a rule. We have to bring in a few tonsils every year to amuse our doctors.
THE SICK MAN—Any shows?
THE FAT MAN—I should say so. Lots of 'em, and all hits. In fact, we've never had a failure (provocatively). Now, what do you think is the best show you ever saw?
THE SICK MAN (reminiscently)—Well, just about the best show I ever saw was a piece called "Fair and Warmer," but, of course, you wouldn't have that.
THE FAT MAN—Of course, we have. The fellow before last wanted that.
THE SICK MAN (truculently)—I'll bet you haven't got the original company.
THE FAT MAN (apologetically)—No, but we expect to get most of them by and by. Nell Gwyn does pretty well in the lead just now.
THE SICK MAN (shocked)—Did she get in?
THE FAT MAN—No, but Rabelais sees her home after the show. We don't think so much of "Fair and Warmer." That might be a good show for New York, but it doesn't class with us. It isn't funny enough.
THE SICK MAN (with rising interest)—Do you mean to say you've got funnier shows than "Fair and Warmer"?
THE FAT MAN—We certainly have. Why, it can't begin to touch that thing of Shaw's called "Ah, There, Annie!"
THE SICK MAN—What Shaw's that?
THE FAT MAN—Regular Shaw.
THE SICK MAN—A lot of things must have been happening since I got sick. I hadn't heard he was dead. At that I always thought that vegetable truck was unhealthy.
THE FAT MAN—He isn't dead.
THE SICK MAN—Well, how about this "Ah, There, Annie!"? He never wrote that show down here.
THE FAT MAN—But he will.
THE SICK MAN (enormously impressed)—Do you get shows there before we have them in New York?
THE FAT MAN—I tell you we get them before they're written.
THE SICK MAN (indignantly)—How can you do that?
THE FAT MAN—I wish you wouldn't ask me. The answer's awfully complicated. You've got to know a lot of higher math. Wait and ask Euclid about it. We don't have any past and future, you know. None of that nuisance about keeping shall and will straight.
THE SICK MAN—Well, I must say that's quite a stunt. You get shows before they're written.
THE FAT MAN—More than that. We get some that never do get written. Take that one of Ibsen's now, "Merry Christmas"—
THE SICK MAN (fretfully)—Ibsen?
THE FAT MAN—Yes, it's a beautiful, sentimental little fairy story with a ghost for the hero. Ibsen just thought about it and never had the nerve to go through with it. He was scared people would kid him, but thinking things makes them so with us.
THE SICK MAN—Then I'd think a sixty-six round Van Cortlandt for myself.
THE FAT MAN—You could do that. But why Van Cortlandt? We've got much better greens on our course. It's a beauty. Seven thousand yards long and I've made it in fifty-four.
THE SICK MAN (suspiciously)—Did you hole out on every green or just estimate?
THE FAT MAN (stiffly)—The score is duly attested. I might add that it was possible because I drove more than four hundred yards on nine of the eighteen holes.
THE SICK MAN—More than four hundred yards? How did you do that?
THE FAT MAN—It must have been the climate, or (thoughtfully) it may be because I wanted so much to drive over four hundred yards on those holes.
THE SICK MAN (with just a shade of scorn)—So that's the trick. I guess nobody'd ever beat me on that course; I'd just want the ball in the hole in one every time.
THE FAT MAN (in gentle reproof)—No, you wouldn't. Where you and I are going pretty soon we're all true sportsmen and nobody there would take an unfair advantage of an opponent.
THE SICK MAN—Before I go I want to know something. There's a fellow in 125th Street's been awful decent to me. Is there any coming back to see people here? (A pause.)
THE FAT MAN—I can't explain to you yet, but it's difficult to arrange that. Still, I wouldn't say that there never were any slumming parties from beyond the grave.
THE SICK MAN (shivering)—The grave! I'd forgotten about that.
THE FAT MAN—Oh, you won't go there, and, what's more, you won't be at the funeral, either. I wish I could keep away from them. I hate funerals. They make me mad. You know, they say "Oh, Death, where is thy sting?" just as if they had a pretty good hunch I had one around me some place after all. And you know that other—"My friends, this is not a sad occasion," but they don't mean it. They keep it sad. They simply won't learn any better. I suppose they'd be a little surprised to know that you were sitting watching Radbourne pitch to Ed. Delehanty with the bases full and three balls and two strikes called. Two runs to win and one to tie.
THE SICK MAN—Will Radbourne pitch?
THE FAT MAN—Sure thing.
THE SICK MAN—And, say, will Delehanty bust that ball?
THE FAT MAN—Make it even money and bet me either way.
THE SICK MAN—I don't want to wait any longer. Tell me that joke of yours and let's go.