Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honor.
JOHN BERGERDrawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.
More John Berger Quotes
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The animal has secrets which, unlike the secrets of caves, mountains, seas are specifically addressed to man.
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(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.
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What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves.
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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.
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Hair is associated with sexual power. With passion.
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Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.
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Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.
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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.
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A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.
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Pleasure and pain need to be considered together; they are inseparable. Yet the space filled by each is perhaps different. Pleasure, defined as a sense of gratification, is essential for nature
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Your lips, beloved, are like a honeycomb: honey and milk are under the tongue. And the smell of your clothes is like the smell of my home.
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By contrast, a woman’s presence… defines what can and cannot be done to her.
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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.
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History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
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The opposite of love is not to hate but to separate. If love and hate have something in common it is because, in both cases, their energy is that of bringing and holding together
JOHN BERGER