For those who are behind the curtain, landmarks are no longer only geographic but also biographical and personal
JOHN BERGERFor those who are behind the curtain, landmarks are no longer only geographic but also biographical and personal
JOHN BERGERModern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all.
JOHN BERGERAs Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances.
JOHN BERGERNakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
JOHN BERGERIt dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.
JOHN BERGERCapitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible.
JOHN BERGERGlamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.
JOHN BERGERYet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.
JOHN BERGERCommon-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 BERGERShe is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself.
JOHN BERGERThis was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable.
JOHN BERGERFor the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.
JOHN BERGERWhat any true painting touches is an absence – an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.
JOHN BERGERThat we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.
JOHN BERGERA 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 BERGERUnlike 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