The Sense of Sight

by John Berger

Overview

With this provocative and infinitely moving collection of essays, a preeminent critic of our time responds to the profound questions posed by the visual world. For when Booker Prize-winning author John Berger writes about Cubism, he writes not only of Braque, Léger, Picasso, and Gris, but of that incredible moment early in this century when the world converged around a marvelous sense of promise. When he looks at the Modigliani, he sees a man’s infinite love revealed in the elongated lines of the painted figure.
 
Ranging from the Renaissance to the conflagration of Hiroshima; from the Bosphorus to Manhattan; from the woodcarvers of a French village to Goya, Dürer, and Van Gogh; and from private experiences of love and of loss, to the major political upheavals of our time, The Sense of Sight encourages us to see with the same breadth, courage, and moral engagement that its author does.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679737223
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/30/1993
Series:	Vintage International
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.17(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in 1958, and since then his books have included Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and lived in a small village in the French Alps. He died in 2017.

Editorial Reviews

"[Berger is] a writer one demands to know more about...an intriguing and powerful mind and talent." — The New York Times

With this provocative and infinitely moving collection of essays, a preeminent critic of our time responds to the profound questions posed by the visual world. For when John Berger writes about Cubism, he writes not only of Braque, Leger, Picasso, and Gris, but of that incredible moment early in this century when the world converged around a marvelous sense of promise. When he looks at the work of Modigliani, he sees a man's infinite love revealed in the elongated lines of the painted figure.

Ranging from the Renaissance to the conflagration of Hiroshima; from the Bosphorus to Manhattan; from the woodcarvers of a French village to Goya, Durer, and Van Gogh; and from private experiences of love and of loss to the major political upheavals of our time, The Sense of Sight encourages us to see with the same breadth, courage, and moral engagement that its author does.

From the Publisher

British art critic and novelist Berger offers a sharp collectionof essays on art and artists and a critical study of Picasso's career. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The fifth volume of writings by the noted British Marxist art critic. Besides being a painter, Berger is recognized for his poetry and fiction, which easily stands out in the items here. The material is quite up-to-date, and few of the essays have appeared in earlier collections; seven of the nine poems were previously unpublished. Essays are grouped thematicallye.g., travel and emigration, dreaming, love and passion. Suicide and death are frequent references. ``The White Bird,'' an unforced lyrical essay on nature and art, is perhaps the finest of the art commentary. It avoids dogmatic and ideological generalizations on class struggle and ``the rich and powerful and the poor,'' included in most items. Berger is without doubt a committed philosopher and critic, but perhaps best read in small doses. For large collections. Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Art Dept., Goucher Coll., Towson, Md.

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