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Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.

John Berger

A photograph is a result of the photographer’s decision that it is worth recording that this particular event or this particular object has been seen. If everything that existed were continually being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless.
JOHN BERGER

Everything Meamimgless Object Particular Photograph Recording Result
All creation is in the art of seeing.
JOHN BERGER

All Creation Art See
Traditional Chinese art looked at the Earth from a Confucian mountain top;
JOHN BERGER

Art Country Italian Mountain Space Top Traditional
Nothing fortuitous happens in a child’s world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
JOHN BERGER

Child Children Fortuitouus Happen Nothing World Young
All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings.
JOHN BERGER

Forget Opposite Other Pain Painting Photography Remind Way
The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
JOHN BERGER

Around Die Dying Gradually Grow One Past Placenta
What is saved in the cinema when it achieves art is a spontaneous continuity with all mankind.
JOHN BERGER

Achieve All Art Cinema Mankind People Save Sky Spontaneous
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
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
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
(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
There’s the artist’s intimacy and truthfulness to himself, but an equal intimacy to the Other [the one drawn].
JOHN BERGER

Artist Drawing Drawn Equal Intimacy Other Truthfulness
All publicity works upon anxiety.
JOHN BERGER

Anxiety Publicity Upon Work
You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest – if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect 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 Greater Illusion Impersonal Interest Observe Others Power Themselves
What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.
JOHN BERGER

Connect Difficult Significant Statement Strange Understand

Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.

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Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.

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