John Berger
John Berger
John Peter Bergeris an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth5 November 1926
John Berger quotes about
flame hope occurs point
The point about hope is that it is something that occurs in very dark moments. It is like a flame in the darkness; it isn't like a confidence and a promise.
calf certain figures tangled
In drawing after drawing, pastel after pastel, painting after painting, the contours of Degas's dancing figures become, at a certain point, darkly insistent, tangled and dusky. It may be around an elbow, a heel, an armpit, a calf muscle, the nape of a neck.
culture except hope industrial longer pleasure power recognises society within
The industrial society... recognises nothing except the power to acquire... No other kind of hope or satisfaction or pleasure can any longer be envisaged within the culture of capitalism.
In ethics, there is a humility; moralists are usually righteous.
cannot empires imagine impossible intelligence lead oneself superpower undermines unique
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
area check denial following itself lead logic memory object order records
A line, an area of tone, is not really important because it records what you have seen, but because of what it will lead you on to see. Following up its logic in order to check its accuracy, you find confirmation or denial in the object itself or in your memory of it.
across century goods information man means men since talks view
Globalisation means many things. At one level, it talks of trade, which since the 16th century has exchanged goods and now, increasingly, ideas and information across the globe. But globalisation is also a view of the world - it is an opinion about man and why men are on the world.
actively against boycott bring change directed either policy
A boycott is directed against a policy and the institutions which support that policy either actively or tacitly. Its aim is not to reject, but to bring about change.
art climbs enigma human life search snail studying talking telling
Art is the provocation for talking about enigma and the search for sense in human life. One can do that by telling a story or writing about a fresco by Giotto or studying how a snail climbs up a wall.
although
'Fahrenheit 9/11' is astounding. Not so much as a film - although it is cunning and moving - but as an event.
against becomes becoming boycott directed exclusive itself
Boycott is not a principle. When it becomes one, it itself risks becoming exclusive and racist. No boycott, in our sense of the term, should be directed against an individual, a people, or a nation as such.
act looked men men-and-women themselves watch women
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
accurate choosing enter life modest
I think I'm very permeable. I can very easily, without even choosing to do it, enter the life of another. Or, to put it in a more modest and accurate way, for that life to enter mine.
life power seemed
It has always seemed to me that those who are without power, who have to create their own in a makeshifit way, know more about life than those who govern.