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Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.

John Berger

(The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguises.
JOHN BERGER

Display Itself Nakedness Nudity Object Place Reveal Sight Stimulate
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
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
As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances.
JOHN BERGER

Boycott Celebrity Circumstance Country Depend Government People Person Pont Principle Tactic Upon Way
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
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
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
The woman’s sexual passion needs to be minimized, so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly on such passion
JOHN BERGER

Feel May Minimize Monopoly Need Passion Sexual Spectator Such Women
Never chain your dogs together with sausages. One must accustom one’s self to be bored.
JOHN BERGER

Accustom Blessing Bored Chain Dog Sausage Self
Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense to that life, the empty space, the gap, is enormous.
JOHN BERGER

Experience Give Giving Moment Narrative Normal Offer Planet Public Sense Space
What 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 BERGER

Absence Loss might Paint Painting Touch True Unaware
If the public photograph contributes to a memory, it is to the memory of an unknowable and total stranger.
JOHN BERGER

Contribute Memories Photograph Stranger Unknowable
Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.
JOHN BERGER

Blindness Chosen Come Dogma Fantacism Form Pursuit
You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.
JOHN BERGER

Enjoy Hand Look Mirror Morally Naked Paint Painting Pleasure Vanity Women
Photographs bear witness to a human choice being exercised in a given situation.
JOHN BERGER

Choice Decision Given Photography Situation
She 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 BERGER

Envy Herself Imagine Justify Loving Menat Object Other Product Transform

Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.

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Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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