Confabulations

Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics.<BR><BR>'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.'<BR><BR>'But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.' <BR><BR>John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has.<BR><BR>John Berger (b. 1926) is an art critic, painter and novelist.born in Hackney, London. <BR>His novel G. (1972) won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize. <BR><BR>If you enjoyed Ways of Seeing, you might like Susan Sontag's On Photography, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.<BR><BR>'Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of professional art critics ... he is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation'<BR>Peter Fuller, Arts Review<BR><BR>'The influence of the series and the book ... was enormous ... It opened up for general attention areas of cultural study that are now commonplace'<BR>Geoff Dyer in Ways of Telling<BR><BR>'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time'<BR>Observer

John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and tenderness.<BR><BR>The selection is made and introduced by Geoff Dyer, author of the award-winning The Ongoing Moment.<BR><BR>How do we see the world around us? This is one of a number of pivotal works by creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision for ever.<BR><BR>John Berger was born in London in 1926. His acclaimed works of both fiction and non-fiction include the seminal Ways of Seeing and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and he now lives in a small village in the French Alps.<BR><BR>Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and several non-fiction books. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award, the International Centre of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters's E. M. Forster Award, Dyer is also a regular contributor to many publications in the UK and the US. He lives in London.

The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza (a.k.a. Bento) spent the most intense years of his short life writing. He also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes—but no drawings.<BR><BR>For years, without knowing what its pages might hold, John Berger has imagined finding Bento’s sketchbook, wanting to see the drawings alongside his surviving words. When one day a friend gave him a beautiful virgin sketchbook, Berger said, ‘This is Bento’s!’ and he began to draw, taking inspiration from the philosopher’s vision.<BR><BR>In this beautifully illustrated book, Berger uses the imaginative space opened up in this experiment to explore politics, storytelling, Spinoza’s life and times, and the process of drawing itself.

The Moment of Cubism is one of John Berger’s most important collections of art criticism. Whether considering Vermeer in his studio, Poussin’s poignant meditation on death, or the complexities of Rodin’s sculpture, Berger draws together the threads that bind individual artists to their social and political context. Here Berger argues that Cubism was a moment rather than a movement, one that came and went without the consent of its key figures – Picasso and Braque above all. He makes a case for Cubism’s revolutionary influence. As always, Berger helps us see the world in new ways.

Unnachahmlich erzählt John Berger von Menschen, von der Kunst und von der Poesie. In seinen Erzählungen beschwört er Vergangenes und trifft die Toten, die ihm als Lebende nahe standen, stets an einem konkreten Ort. So begegnet der Erzähler in einem Park in Lissabon seiner verstorbenen Mutter. Er erkennt sie an ihrem Gang und an der besonderen Stille, die sie umgibt. Ihr legt er die Idee in den Mund, dass die Toten, nachdem sie gestorben sind, sich einen Ort aussuchen dürfen, an dem sie bleiben wollen. So verbindet John Berger Orte und Menschen, um sie noch einmal in ihrer Besonderheit zu vergegenwärtigen und seine Beziehungen zu ihnen lebendig werden zu lassen.'Hier, wo wir uns begegnen' ist fast so etwas wie eine Autobiographie und doch von rätselhafter Zeitlosigkeit, geschrieben im Vertrauen auf die Macht der Einbildungskraft.

John Berger explores the life and work of Ernst Neizvestny, who, after clashing with Khrushchev, was excluded from the ranks of officially approved Soviet artists. Abandoned to obscurity, Neizvestny laboured to realize a monumental and very public vision of art. Exiled to the United States, he finally found recognition, returning to his homeland with the fall of the Berlin Wall.<BR><BR>Berger’s account illuminates the very meaning of revolutionary art. In his struggle against official orthodoxy – which brought him into face-to-face conflict with Khrushchev himself – Neizvestny was fight-ing not for a merely personal or aesthetic vision, but for recognition of the social role of art. His sculptures earn a place in the world by reflecting the courage of a whole people, commemorating, in an age of mass suffering, the resistance and endurance of millions.

The centenary edition, with a newly commissioned introduction by Berger's biographer, Tom Overton.<BR><BR>'Instant readability . . . [Berger] makes one see [paintings] as statements or questions in a living language.' New Statesman<BR>'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Observer<BR> 'Berger is a writer one demands to know more about . . . an intriguing and powerful mind and talent' New York Times<BR><BR> As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization.<BR><BR> In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti?<BR><BR> In asking these and other questions, Berger alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.

In Gorino, an der italienischen Küste, dort, wo der Po ins offene Meer mündet, soll Ninons Hochzeit stattfinden. Der Vater der Braut kommt aus Frankreich mit seinem schweren Motorrad über die Alpen. Ninons Mutter, eine Tschechin, reist von Bratislava mit dem Bus an. Und Gino, der Bräutigam, ist Italiener. An Ninons Schicksal haben Menschen unterschiedlicher Nationen Anteil. Ninon ist krank, und sie weiß, daß sie nicht mehr lange zu leben hat. Als sie mit Gino in einem Boot auf dem Po fährt, spürt sie mit geschlossenen Augen die Strömung. Gino aber vermag in der Strömung zu navigieren, und so will er Ninon zeigen, daß sie auch mit der Krankheit leben kann. An ihrem Hochzeitstag läßt sie sich vom Taumel der Lebensfreude mitreißen. Ninons Tanz wird zu einem Hymnus auf das Leben, gerade, wenn es am meisten bedroht ist.