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A drawing is essentially a private work, related only to the artist’s own needs; a ‘finished’ statue or canvas is essentially a public, presented work – related far more directly to the demands of communication.

John Berger

Painting is something that you need to do, if not every day, then certainly most days. It is almost like being a pianist: if you stop, you lose something.
JOHN BERGER

Almost Being Certainly Certainty Need Painting Pianist Something
To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.
JOHN BERGER

Ignorant Innocent May Remain
Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant.
JOHN BERGER

Common Common Sense Deprive Fundamental Home Ideology Ignorant Learning Part Sense
It is comparatively easy to achieve a certain unity in a picture by allowing one colour to dominate, or by muting all the colours.
JOHN BERGER

Allow Artist Certain Colour Comparitively Dominate Easy Mute Together Unity
One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating.
JOHN BERGER

Abstract Actual Cynical Disillusioned Doctor Fundamental Idealism Knowing Life Precise Reason Treat
Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Born Distinguish Men Relationship Symbol Yet
Nothing fortuitous happens in a child’s world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
JOHN BERGER

Child Children Fortuitouus Happen Nothing World Young
Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
JOHN BERGER

Act Around Evil Human Inhuman Nature Need Nothing Repeated Talking Way
Modern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all.
JOHN BERGER

Character Death Modern Notion Spectular Time Transferred
The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.
JOHN BERGER

Invisible Photograph Play Time True
The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
JOHN BERGER

Around Die Dying Gradually Grow One Past Placenta
The stars threaded on that line were like events threaded on a narrative. Imagining the constellations did not of course change the stars, nor did it change the black emptiness that surrounds them. What it changed was the way people read the night sky.
JOHN BERGER

Change Constellation Event Imagining Night People Sky Surround Threaded
A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Away Become Fond Glad Peasant Pig Pigs Pork Two
Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.
JOHN BERGER

Alive Cicadas Legend Poem Poet Quiet Soul
Advertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal
JOHN BERGER

Advertising Assembly Being Competing Language Merely Message Messages Same Use
Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature through the window or door-frame of a palace.
JOHN BERGER

Around Close Conquer Country Door Frame Look Place Renaissance Screen Survey Window

A drawing is essentially a private work, related only to the artist’s own needs; a ‘finished’ statue or canvas is essentially a public, presented work – related far more directly to the demands of communication.

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A drawing is essentially a private work, related only to the artist’s own needs; a ‘finished’ statue or canvas is essentially a public, presented work – related far more directly to the demands of communication.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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