John Berger

Ways of Seeing, Berger's four-part BBC series of 1972 and the book made with Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb and Richard Hollis, changed what viewers notice in a painting: who owns it, who is looking at whom, how a nude differs from a naked person, and how oil painting's love of possessions lives on in advertising. Some arguments now feel blunt, but the habit of asking who an image serves sticks for life. His later essays, such as About Looking, are gentler and just as observant, especially on animals, photographs and rural life.