A major new work from the world's leading writer on art
A major new work from the world's leading art writer, following the success of last year's "Portraits". A tour of the history of art, but not as you know it.
“Essential … reminds us that all good writing comes only from good (that is, patient, attentive, loving) looking.”
—Andrew Marr, New Statesman “Berger’s prose manifests an ethics of the committed gaze, a great sympathy for the human animal in pain and a great anger for the political conditions that extend that pain unnecessarily. As he wrote recently: ‘What has prompted me to write over the years is the hunch that something needs to be told and that if I don’t try to tell it, it risks not being told.’ The humbleness of the word ‘hunch’ in that statement tells you all you need to know.”
—John Douglas Millar, Frieze “Essential reading not just for our political moment but outside it. He was a monument, a world of his own; at the same time, his thinking and his art—which are the same thing—address themselves at once to the past, the present, and the future.”
—n+1 “Life has more light and colour after an encounter with Berger.”
—Art Newspaper “Berger is a masterful observer, a trait that lends his writing a profound element of artistry: these essays read like sketched studies of an as-yet-painted masterwork … these worldly essays are timeless, inspiring works of critical observation.”
—Kirkus Praise for John Berger: “John Berger teaches us how to think, how to feel how to stare at things until we see what we thought wasn’t there. But above all, he teaches us how to love in the face of adversity. He is a master.”
—Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things “I admire and love John Berger’s books … Not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience. He is a wonderful artist and thinker.”
—Susan Sontag “One of the most influential intellectuals of our time.”
—Sean O’Hagan, Observer “Berger is a writer one demands to know more about … an intriguing and powerful mind and talent.”
—New York Times
