About this ebook
“Essential reading”—n+1
Creative and political art criticism on landscape works from the Renaissance to the present from a “master” storyteller (Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things)
In this brilliant collection of diverse pieces—essays, short stories, poems, translations—which spans a lifetime’s engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of seeing. He pays homage to the writers and thinkers who influenced him, such as Walter Benjamin, Rosa Luxemburg and Bertolt Brecht. His expansive perspective takes in artistic movements and individual artists—from the Renaissance to the present—while never neglecting the social and political context of their creation.
Berger pushes at the limits of art writing, demonstrating beautifully how his artist’s eye makes him a storyteller in these essays, rather than a critic. With “landscape” as an animating, liberating metaphor rather than a rigid definition, this collection surveys the aesthetic landscapes that have informed, challenged and nourished John Berger’s understanding of the world. Landscapes—alongside its companion Portraits—completes a tour through the history of art that will be an intellectual benchmark for many years to come.
Creative and political art criticism on landscape works from the Renaissance to the present from a “master” storyteller (Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things)
In this brilliant collection of diverse pieces—essays, short stories, poems, translations—which spans a lifetime’s engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of seeing. He pays homage to the writers and thinkers who influenced him, such as Walter Benjamin, Rosa Luxemburg and Bertolt Brecht. His expansive perspective takes in artistic movements and individual artists—from the Renaissance to the present—while never neglecting the social and political context of their creation.
Berger pushes at the limits of art writing, demonstrating beautifully how his artist’s eye makes him a storyteller in these essays, rather than a critic. With “landscape” as an animating, liberating metaphor rather than a rigid definition, this collection surveys the aesthetic landscapes that have informed, challenged and nourished John Berger’s understanding of the world. Landscapes—alongside its companion Portraits—completes a tour through the history of art that will be an intellectual benchmark for many years to come.
About the author
Storyteller, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, dramatist and critic, John Berger is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. His many books include Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, Here Is Where We Meet, the Booker Prize winning novel G, Hold Everything Dear, the Man Booker–long-listed From A to X and A Seventh Man.
Tom Overton catalogued John Berger’s archive at the British Library. He has curated exhibitions at King’s Cultural Institute, Somerset House and the Whitechapel Gallery, and his writing has been published by the LRB blog, New Statesman, Apollo, White Review, Various Small Fires, Tate, the British Council and others.
Tom Overton catalogued John Berger’s archive at the British Library. He has curated exhibitions at King’s Cultural Institute, Somerset House and the Whitechapel Gallery, and his writing has been published by the LRB blog, New Statesman, Apollo, White Review, Various Small Fires, Tate, the British Council and others.
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