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All creation is in the art of seeing.

John Berger

It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.
JOHN BERGER

Between Explicit Fully Make Relationship Stories Trying Universal Usually Writing
Yet nowherein a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Beyond Blindly Encounter Flicker Gaze Look Most Pass Stranger
The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it’s something that theatre can do, but it’s rare; it’s very rare.
JOHN BERGER

Art Common Differentiate More People Power Rare Sometimes Strange Theatre Urgent
All publicity works upon anxiety.
JOHN BERGER

Anxiety Publicity Upon Work
This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.
JOHN BERGER

Accept Callous Human Inhuman Know Live Society Worth
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
Matisse did neither. He clashed his colours together like cymbals and the effect was like a lullaby.
JOHN BERGER

Clash Color Cymbal Effect Lullaby Matisse Neither Together
Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.
JOHN BERGER

Doe Drawing Image Imitation Life Photograph Photography Rendering Subject Trace Unlike Viewer Visual
Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
JOHN BERGER

Beauty Condemned Display Dresses Naked Nue Place
At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism.
JOHN BERGER

Artist Disaster Failure Mean Necessary Perfection Time Ultimate
In the average European oil painting of the nude the principal protagonist is never painted. He is the spectator in front of the picture and he is presumed to be a man.
JOHN BERGER

Average Country Men never Painting Presume Principal Protagonist Rude Spectator
If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.
JOHN BERGER

Event Given Name Need Occurred Story
We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.
JOHN BERGER

Earth Explanation Knowledge Quite Sight Yet
I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it’s more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.
JOHN BERGER

Around Help Look Marvelous People See Terrible Want World Writing
This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.
JOHN BERGER

Determine Effection Men Most Only Relation Relationship Themselves Wome
It can happen that a book, unlike its authors, grows younger as the years pass.
JOHN BERGER

Book Grow Pass Unlike Year Younger

All creation is in the art of seeing.

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All creation is in the art of seeing.

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