John Berger Knihy

V tematicky rozmanitých esejích se autor soustřeďuje na základní předpoklady, které ovlivňují naše umělecké vnímání. Úvodní stať (Proč se dívat na zvířata) se svým námětem poněkud vymyká z celého souboru - věnuje se vývoji vztahu člověka a zvířete a kriticky tematizuje fenomén kulturní marginalizace zvířat v moderní době. Následují oddíly věnované fotografii a výtvarnému umění - Berger se ve svých výtvarných kritikách a analýzách věnuje jak význačným představitelům starého umění (La Tour, Hals), tak výtvarným umělcům 19. a 20. století (Courbet, Turner, Bacon, Rouault, Magritte, Giacometti a další). Texty, které charakterizuje historicko-sociologický přístup a zároveň autorova politická angažovanost, pocházejí většinou ze 60. a 70. let 20. století a vyšly původně časopisecky.

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” -- so opens John Berger’s revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most 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.

"Traces Picasso's life and work from his childhood to his last drawings, and suggests that Picasso was a 'vertical invader' from Europe's feudal past, a 'primitive' man who burst upon a complex civilization and conquered it. Also analyzes the price Picasso paid for that conquest: in exile, isolation, and loneliness. Shows how the phenomenon of Picasso's success was connected less with his art than with the nostalgic nineteenth-century idea of genius that he evoked in others" --back cover

Honore Daumier (1808-1879) is perhaps best known for his political and social caricatures, precise and witty observations of life in nineteenth-century France. This study offers an assessment of his entire oeuvre, bringing together his paintings, sculptures, watercolours, drawings and lithographs, all of which were greatly admired in his lifetime.

1997 erhält John Berger von John Christie ein rot bemaltes Papier. Berger antwortet, er gibt der Farbe rot eine eigene 'Lebensgeschichte': das unberührte Rot der Kindheit, das Schwarz, in das es sich verwandelt im Älterwerden, das Weiß, das es war, als es jung war, bis er zu seinem Lieblingsrot, dem Caravaggio-Rot kommt. Später schreiben sich Berger und Christie über das Matisse-Blau, das Yves Klein-Blau, sie kommen von Klein zu Le Corbusier, von Perlmutt zu Courbet, von Gelb zu Gold, von Kandinsky zu Paul Klee. Die Publikation dieser faszinierenden Korrespondenz ist eine Schatzkammer für alle diejenigen, die sich für Farben, Gestaltung, Malerei, Kunstgeschichte und Design interessieren. Die phantasievoll und sehr künstlerisch gestalteten Briefe werden alle im Faksimile und in Übersetzung wiedergegeben.

Why does the Western world look to migrant laborers to perform the most menial tasks? What compels people to leave their homes and accept this humiliating situation? In A Seventh Man, John Berger and Jean Mohr come to grips with what it is to be a migrant worker—the material circumstances and the inner experience—and, in doing so, reveal how the migrant is not so much on the margins of modern life, but absolutely central to it. First published in 1975, this finely wrought exploration remains as urgent as ever, presenting a mode of living that pervades the countries of the West and yet is excluded from much of its culture.

One of the most eloquent accounts of photography written in collaboration with the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr and illustrated by both Jean Mohr's work and notable examples of photography throughout the Twentieth Century. This publication ties in with the BBC's televising of a four part series.

Once in Europa was first published by John Berger in 1987. Bloomsbury's reissue of this moving love story has been given a new and poignant twist with the addition of award-winning photographer Patricia Macdonald's remarkable colour images which punctuate Berger's lyrical tale of stoical romance in the midst of agrarian collapse and the depredations of heavy industry in Central Europe in the 1950s. Odile lives with her ageing father as he fights to retain his smallholding amidst the encroachment of the local steel works. She recounts that "the first sounds I remember are the factory siren and the noise of the river", and her idyllic childhood is increasingly eroded and replaced by the environmental destruction which the factory visits upon both its surroundings and those who work there: "the furnaces throbbed, the river flowed, the smoke, sometimes white, sometimes grey, sometimes yellow, thrust upwards into the sky, men worked night and day for generations, sweating, retching, pissing, coughing". Odile's promising school career is cut short as she falls in love with the communist steelworker Stepan. His sudden death at the factory, and the company's indifference to the pregnant Odile leave her destitute, ultimately finding solace in another victim of the factory's malign practices, the crippled Michel. The tragic impact of industrialisation upon a rural community is wonderfully judged by Berger, and there are passages of exquisite lyricism and stoicism as Odile attempts to eke out an existence for herself and her children. Macdonald's photographs beautifully complement the tone and atmosphere of Berger's text, especially her astonishing aerial photographs of urban and rural wildernesses. This is a sober snapshot of late 20th-century Europa. -- Jerry Brotton

"Since 'Thriller' and the widely acclaimed 'Orlando', writer-director Sally Potter has been known as a pioneer filmmaker. [... YES is] easily her masterpiece to date. The central action, set in contemporary London, involves a successful scientist locked in a passionless marriage and conducting an intensely sexual affair with a Lebanese immigrant worker. But this sturdy dramatic situation is only the beginning."--Publisher's description. Includes both the finished screenplay and the original short film script it was based on, as well as photos, credits, and a question-and-answer session with Sally Potter and actress Joan Allen