Ways of Seeing - John Berger

I have a memory of reading this book decades ago but have recently watched the four half-hour accompanying programmes produced by Berger which brought it back to mind. My impression is that it's very sixties/early seventies in sensibility in that Berger takes the part of a MARXIST MARTIAN astonished by the humanoid creatures he is examining for us. If he had known and understood what he and his fellow creatures were in advance might he have been less astonished? Or does he affect to be nonplussed in order to ' know again' the bleeding' obvious about western humans, as if he has just discovered them in the Brazilian jungle, in order to endow them with an academic mystique concocted by himself? In, for example, his examination of Gainsborough's 'Mr and Mrs Andrews', he declares himself to be terribly surprised to find that we are territorial animals who struggle for success and, when it comes, like to advertise the residential property and belongings it brings us and our families.  His astonishment seems a more extraordinary thing. Similarly, in the case of a mammalian species whose survival depends on sexual reproduction, he is surprised to discover that western art reflects that most women go about with a concern about how they appear to men. Evie tells me that to know this is still true you only have to go to Glasgow bus station on a Saturday night. Then he is amazed at the way in which adverts associate the products they are trying to sell with glamorous people with glamorous lifestyles. Whoddathunk? And he looks like Roger Daltrey but sounds like, if it's possible, an even more serious and portentous Malcolm Muggeridge.

https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=john+berger+ways+of+seeing&ra=m