John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 2008

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before he can speak.

But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing that establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never erase the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relationship between what we see and what we know is never established. 

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing is one of the most inspiring and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series on which the Sunday Times critic commented: “This opens our eyes in more ways than one: focusing on how we look at paintings… Will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures. It already has. “