"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.""But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the "London Sunday Times" critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings ...he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

本书是约翰•伯格的第五部随笔集，就其囊括的时间跨度、写作类型、所关注的问题而言，这本文集是最为详尽的。以他较新近的作品为轴心，本书使我们得以管窥他写作思想的发展。他为我们展现了约翰•伯格身上两种特质的结合：定居的耕作者和从远方来的旅行者。这里所选择的文章能够相当直接地归属到几个标题之下：旅行和移居，梦想，爱情和激情，死亡，作为行为和人工制品的艺术，理论与生产、再生产世界的体力劳动之间的关系。