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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

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
JOHN BERGER

Between Just never One Ourselves Thing
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 Envied Envy Greater Illusion Power Themselves
A 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 BERGER

Artist Communication Drawing Finished Need Only Private Public Relate Statue Work
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set.
JOHN BERGER

Between Know Relation Settle
When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss.
JOHN BERGER

Anguish Childhood Grief Learn Loss Period Suffer Total
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.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Capacity Development First Human In Language Men Separate Signal Symbolic
To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself.
JOHN BERGER

Beauty Naked Oneself Recognise Seen
Everything in life, is a question of drawing a life, John, and you have to decide for yourself where to draw it.
JOHN BERGER

Decide Draw Drawing Everything People Question Trying Yourself
Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.
JOHN BERGER

Comic Connection Connections Draw Drawing Metaphor Reconnect Separate Upon Way
The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product.
JOHN BERGER

Buy Buyer Envy Herself Imagine Meant Product Spectator
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.
JOHN BERGER

Almost Being Certainly Certainty Need Painting Pianist Something
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
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
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
It is not an art of the princes or the bourgeoisie. It is popular and vagrant. In the sky of the cinema people learn what they might have been and discover what belongs to them apart from their single lives.
JOHN BERGER

Art Bourgeoisie Cinema Discover Learn People Popular Princes Single Sky Vagrant
These contradictions both hide and increase the natural ambiguity of the photographic image.
JOHN BERGER

Ambiguity Contradiction Image Increase Natural Photo Photograph

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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