In Ways of Seeing, John Berger provides a discussion of the changes wrought by the invention of the camera. Literally as well as figuratively, the "mechanical eye" forged a new way of seeing compared to painting, "The camera showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual. What you saw depended upon where you were when. What you saw was relative to your position in time and space" (Berger 18). Primarily, Berger argues that since the camera any object that is properly seen leads to an understanding of capitalist society.
Berger makes an argument that any art object we look at is perceived differently by different people in different times and space. This is especially true for different cultures in Berger's view, since he believes that social and political forces are responsible for shaping the values and ideology in artwork. Berger offers many examples to show a Marxist analysis of art, arguing that most artwork reveals the ideas and attitudes dominant among the wealthy during the era they were created. He uses one of Gainsborough's paintings to reveal this. As Berger says of "Mr. and Mrs. Andrews" by Gainsborough, "They are not a couple in Nature as Rousseau imagined nature. They are landowners and their proprietary attitude towards what surrounds them is visible in their stance and their expressions" (107).
Berger also shows that class and race played a part in shaping art, like the examples of the wealthy painted as sitting above or higher than their servants or slaves. Berger reveals that wealthy Europeans used art to reinforce the notion that the elite were superior to the poor. In order to achieve this dominance over art ideology and the poor, Berger maintains the elite often resorted to the creation of myths related to art that would further legitimize their power and the status quo. For instance, art as somethin
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