nday painter' is not often a compliment. I was attracted to the novel form because I was attracted to the mystery of a person's subjectivity and behaviour, their destinies and choices. The things that can't be schematised. The challenge is to try not just to explain the mystery, but to ensure the mystery is shared and doesn't remain isolated."
He has gone on to write a dozen novels, most recently the Boo
John Berger: a life in writing
He has gone on to write a dozen novels, most recently the Boo
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
. But I had realised very early on that if you are attacking the status quo, whether that be the art world or the political and social status quo, then you expect to be attacked back. In a certain sense it is confirmation that you are on the right track." Over the years since Berger has been involved in many public debates and controversial political campaigns. "But I actually think of myself as quite a shy person, although I know I give the i
John Berger: a life in writing
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
hose painters, whether they lived a few hundred years ago or were still alive, were somehow my companions." And with his interest in art came the development of his critical faculties. "I absolutely detested the pre-Raphaelites. Unjustly, I now think. It was something to do with their religiosity as I saw it. But Rembrandt was very important to me and what were then the moderns – Matisse, Modigliani."
At 16 Be
John Berger: a life in writing
At 16 Be
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
h includes the Marxist view of history. On the other a sense of the sacred, the religious if you like. This duality never felt contradictory to me, but most other people thought it was.It is beautifully resolved by Spinoza, who shows that it is not a duality, but in fact an essential unity." Berger was born in London in 1926. His father, of Hungarian origin via Trieste, went on to become an early proponent of management theory, but his experiences in the first world war cast a pa
John Berger: a life in writing
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
bout, albeit in a different spirit, with Ways of Seeing. So in a funny way I see it as possessing a family likeness. Its character is different, but it is definitely related." Ways of Seeing, Berger's 1972 book and TV series, was a Marxist riposte to Kenneth Clark's patrician Civilisation. It exposed Berger and the ideas that underpinned the programmes – both then known only in left-wing and art circles –
John Berger: a life in writing
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
guided tour of the Wallace collection and reflecting on the physical and political similarities between the American folk radical Woody Guthrie and the Russian writer Andrei Platonov: "both lent their voices to those without a voice, and both confronted rural poverty" .
"Spinoza has been in my head for a very long time," he explains. "Reading Marx as an 18-year-old, I remember him responding to a game in which he was asked to name his favourite philo
John Berger: a life in writing
"Spinoza has been in my head for a very long time," he explains. "Reading Marx as an 18-year-old, I remember him responding to a game in which he was asked to name his favourite philo
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
oth to conceal so much and to reveal so much." Bento's Sketchbook is a characteristically sui generis work, combining an engagement with the thought of the 17th-century
lens grinder, draughtsman and philosopher Baruch Spinoza with a study of drawing and a series of semi-autobiographical sketches, through which Berger attempts to explore the world around him and his place within it. We observe the bullishly fit and
John Berger: a life in writing
lens grinder, draughtsman and philosopher Baruch Spinoza with a study of drawing and a series of semi-autobiographical sketches, through which Berger attempts to explore the world around him and his place within it. We observe the bullishly fit and
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
d man of British art being summarily booted out of the National Gallery. But he nevertheless displays a lingering anger at what he sees as the underlying reasons for the confrontation. "They kept saying it was a matter of security," he says, sneeringly elongating the word in the idiosyncratically French-inflected accent he has acquired after living there for almost 50 years. " Security. A word that these days seems simultaneously both to conceal so much and to reveal so much."
Bento's Sketchbook is a characteristically sui generis work, combining an
John Berger: a life in writing
Bento's Sketchbook is a characteristically sui generis work, combining an
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
Christ Crucified by the early renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, a work he describes as "the most solitary painting of the scene that I know. The least allegorical." Berger placed his small shoulder bag on the attendant's chair in the corner of the room and began to draw with ink, wetting his index finger to smudge the lines and correct mistakes. Before long the attendant returned and asked Berger to remove his bag. Berger placed it on the floor at his feet and resumed drawing. The attendant said he couldn't leave it on the floor. Berger explained that if he held it he would be unable to draw. The dispute escalated, and at some stage Berger exclaimed "fuck". A supervisor was called who told Berger he had insulted a member of staff doing his job and had "shouted obscene words in a public institution". He was escorted from the building: "I take it you know the way out, sir." Berger tells the anecdote in his new book published next month, Bento's Sketchbook (Verso), which also contains his, hastily completed, drawing of the crucifixion. In the book the ep
John Berger: a life in writing
John Berger: a life in writing
7 years
-32" rel="32">Secure at first food and clothing, and the kingdom of God will come to you of itself – Hegel, 1807", or as Brecht – Benjamin's greatest and closest friend – put it "first bread, then morality". But this precisely did not mean that abstraction, speculation and thought per se had to be rejected in favour of an entirely mechanistic historical materialism. What sets all of the thinkers
The Frankfurt school, part 5: Walter Benjamin, fascism and the future | Peter Thompson | Opinion | The Guardian
The Frankfurt school, part 5: Walter Benjamin, fascism and the future | Peter Thompson | Opinion | The Guardian
7 years
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