“Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way.” — John Berger Copy Share Image
At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events. — John Berger Copy Share Image
A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Without ethics, man has no future. This is to say, mankind without them cannot be itself. Ethics determine choices and actions and… — John Berger Copy Share Image
So time doesn't count, and place does?' I said this to tease her. When I was a man, I liked teasing her… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Emigration, forced or chosen, across national frontiers or from village to metropolis, is the quintessential experience of our time. — John Berger Copy Share Image
Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable… — John Berger Copy Share Image
“I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges,… — John Berger Copy Share Image
The past is the one thing we are not prisoners of. We can do with the past exactly what we wish. What… — John Berger Copy Share Image
“I've learnt something more. The expectation of a body can last as long as any hope. Like mine expecting yours. As soon… — John Berger Copy Share Image
[O]ften art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that… — John Berger Copy Share Image
The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time. — John Berger Copy Share Image
Modern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all. — John Berger Copy Share Image
The contradiction in perspective was that it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only… — John Berger Copy Share Image
History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past — John Berger Copy Share Image
“Publicity is in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future... According to publicity, to be sophisticated is to… — John Berger Copy Share Image
I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges,… — John Berger Copy Share Image
“[...] For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us in the… — John Berger Copy Share Image
“When I'm drawing - and here drawing is very different from writing or reasoning - I have the impression at certain moments… — John Berger Copy Share Image
When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. — John Berger Copy Share Image
The impulse to paint comes neither from observation nor from the soul (which is probably blind) but from an encounter: the encounter between painter… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Landscapes can be deceptive. Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which… — John Berger Copy Share Image
We live in a dominant culture of ceaseless Departure and Progress that has so far lasted two or three centuries. — John Berger Copy Share Image
My heart born naked was swaddled in lullabies. Later alone it wore poems for clothes. Like a shirt I carried on my back the… — John Berger Copy Share Image
There's the artist's intimacy and truthfulness to himself, but an equal intimacy to the Other [the one drawn]. Picasso drawings are like that... the… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Traditional Chinese art looked at the Earth from a Confucian mountain top; Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature… — John Berger Copy Share Image
Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one. — John Berger Copy Share Image
In drawing after drawing, pastel after pastel, painting after painting, the contours of Degas's dancing figures become, at a certain point, darkly insistent, tangled… — John Berger Copy Share Image
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. — John Berger Copy Share Image
We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the accident of birth, there is no accident of death.… — John Berger Copy Share Image
![“[O]ften art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. . . .” quote by John Berger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/469/john-berger-1590_art_o-ften-art-has-judged-the-judges-pleaded_2542460.jpg)
![“[...] For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free. They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us. They have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in themselves, have power. Yet very few people…” quote by John Berger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/be8/john-berger-1590_art_for-the-first-time-ever-images-of-art-ha_2591874.jpg)
![“There's the artist's intimacy and truthfulness to himself, but an equal intimacy to the Other [the one drawn]. Picasso drawings are like that... the Rembrandts are like that. The artist who most often did that was Van Gogh.” quote by John Berger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0d1/john-berger-1590_art_there-s-the-artist-s-intimacy-and-truthf_155171.jpg)
