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The impulse to paint comes neither from observation nor from the soul (which is probably blind) but from an encounter: the encounter between painter and model: even if the model is a mountain or a shelf of empty medicine bottles.

John Berger

The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.
JOHN BERGER

Back Herself Love Offer Price Product Publicity Stealing
It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.
JOHN BERGER

Basket Dog Dream Haire Like Open
Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.
JOHN BERGER

Contraband Hand Stories
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

Artist Communication Drawing Finished Need Only Private Public Relate Statue Work
The human imagination… has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy.
JOHN BERGER

Confine Difficulty Dog Dream Human Imagination Live Materialist Philosophy Practice Strict
History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
JOHN BERGER

Always Constitute History Past Present Relation
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
JOHN BERGER

Between Just never One Ourselves Thing
When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss.
JOHN BERGER

Anguish Childhood Grief Learn Loss Period Suffer Total
Today the discredit of words is very great.
JOHN BERGER

Discredit Great Hijacking Today Word
The extreme proposition on which Giacometti based all his mature work was that no reality… could ever be shared. This is why he believed it impossible for a work to be finished. This is why the content of any work is not the nature of the figure or head portrayed but the incomplete history of him staring at it.
JOHN BERGER

Bases Extreme Finishing Giacometti History Impossible Incomplete Portrayed Proposition Reality Share Staring
Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events.
JOHN BERGER

Artist Country Event Influence might Outgoing Political Themselves Time Tragedies
Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.
JOHN BERGER

Different Forget Look Meaning Pain Remember Thing
Landscapes can be deceptive. Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents takes place.
JOHN BERGER

Achievement Behind Deceptive Landscape Life Seem Setting Sometimes Struggle Success
Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
JOHN BERGER

Children Looks Speak Recognize Word
Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished. The only way of going out, or shutting the door behind you, is to leave the centre.
JOHN BERGER

Behind Bourgeois Building Conservatories Door Furniture Galleries Go House Shutting Street Way
The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.
JOHN BERGER

Bureaucrat Envied Envy Greater Illusion Power Themselves

The impulse to paint comes neither from observation nor from the soul (which is probably blind) but from an encounter: the encounter between painter and model: even if the model is a mountain or a shelf of empty medicine bottles.

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The impulse to paint comes neither from observation nor from the soul (which is probably blind) but from an encounter: the encounter between painter and model: even if the model is a mountain or a shelf of empty medicine bottles.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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