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A review by moonpix
Portraits: John Berger on Artists by John Berger
4.0
There is as much to learn stylistically as there is historically in this collection; Berger is unfailingly succinct without ever sacrificing too much complexity. And though I would have appreciated more historical background it is best to see his writing as rhetorical, personal responses to artists since in many of the essays I was very taken by the way he described things without fully being convinced by his interpretations. My favorites were the essays on Matthias Grünewald, Hans Holbein the Younger, Caravaggio, Diego Velázquez (!), J.M.W. Turner, Ferdinand Cheval, Frida Kahlo, Francis Bacon, and Pollock and Lee Krasner. The chronological format works well, and in the move from writing about ancient artists to writing about personal friends the collection becomes even more of an intellectual and personal record of the writer's life. Though I will say that many of the essays on contemporary artists near the end are shorter and therefore noticeably weaker.
It's easy to fall in love with painting all over again when spending time with someone with such passion and breath of knowledge for it. The following text especially I will be taking with me as a guiding light for how to best appreciate and understand art:
"It is a common-place that the significance of a work of art changes as it survives. Usually however, this knowledge is used to distinguish between 'them' (in the past) and 'us' (now). There is a tendency to picture them and their reactions to art as being embedded in history, and at the same time to credit ourselves with an over-view, looking across from what we treat as the summit of history. The surviving work of art then seems to confirm our superior position. The aim of its survival was us.
This is illusion. There is no exemption from history. The first time I saw the Grünewald I was anxious to place it historically. In terms of medieval religion, the plague, medicine, the Lazar house. Now I have been forced to place myself historically."
It's easy to fall in love with painting all over again when spending time with someone with such passion and breath of knowledge for it. The following text especially I will be taking with me as a guiding light for how to best appreciate and understand art:
"It is a common-place that the significance of a work of art changes as it survives. Usually however, this knowledge is used to distinguish between 'them' (in the past) and 'us' (now). There is a tendency to picture them and their reactions to art as being embedded in history, and at the same time to credit ourselves with an over-view, looking across from what we treat as the summit of history. The surviving work of art then seems to confirm our superior position. The aim of its survival was us.
This is illusion. There is no exemption from history. The first time I saw the Grünewald I was anxious to place it historically. In terms of medieval religion, the plague, medicine, the Lazar house. Now I have been forced to place myself historically."