First broadcast in 1972 on BBC Two, Ways of Seeing was a collaboration between the writer John Berger and director Mike Dibb. Across a series of four half-hour episodes, Berger talked about how we look at art, and why it matters: "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled ... The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe ... Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph ... Our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing". The programmes explored Walter Benjamin's ideas about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction; the female nude and the male gaze; oil painting, status and ownership; advertising, art and commerce. The book published to accompany the series has never been out of print and has had a profound influence on popular understanding of art criticism and visual culture.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Ways of Seeing, Radio 4 invites five writers to tell us about a work of art that is important to them, and to reflect on how Ways of Seeing influenced their own ways of looking at - and thinking about - art.

In today's episode, Berger's biographer and archivist Tom Overton looks at a self-portrait made by Berger at the age of 19. "I hope you will consider what I arrange, John Berger says at the end of the first episode of Ways of Seeing. But please, he adds, be sceptical of it. For him, a lifetime looking at art was a lifetime thinking about the power art has over people, and being reminded that it is part of a world in which decisions have consequences, but also alternatives. This is how this picture looks, but it didn’t have to be. This is the government we have, but it doesn’t have to be. This is the way we use technology, but it doesn’t have to be."

Tom Overton is the editor of Portraits: John Berger on Artists (2015) and Landscapes (2016), two volumes of John Berger's writing about art published by Verso Books. He is currently working on Berger's biography, and The Good Archivist, a book on archives and migration. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s College London, and a Writer in Residence at Jerwood Visual Arts.

John Berger was a storyteller, a novelist, a painter, a poet, a critic, a screenwriter, a playwright. He died in 2017, at the age of 90.

Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

The photograph of Berger's self portrait shown here is by John Christie. The print itself is reproduced here by kind permission of Yves Berger. Show less