What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time. John Berger More Quotes by John Berger More Quotes From John Berger Traditional Chinese art looked at the Earth from a Confucian mountain top; Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature through the window or door-frame of a palace. For the Cro-Magnons, space is a metaphysical arena of continually intermittent appearances and disappearances. John Berger italianspaceart When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together. John Berger childhoodgriefloss What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them. John Berger animalmenfirsts You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events. John Berger according-to-planplansevents Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman. John Berger citiesmenbelieve Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. John Berger speakchildrenlooks When he painted a road, the roadmakers were there in his imagination, when he painted the turned earth of a ploughed field, the gesture of the blade turning the earth was included in his own act. Whenever he looked he saw the labour of existence; and this labour, recognised as such, was what constituted reality for him. (On Vincent Van Gogh) John Berger imaginationearthreality The essence of songs is neither vocal nor cerebral but organic. We follow songs in order to be enclosed. We find ourselves inside a message. The unsung, impersonal world remains outside, on the other surface of a placenta. All songs, even when their content or rendering is strongly masculine, operate maternally. John Berger essencesongorder Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural. John Berger compassionorderworld It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it John Berger seeingfactsworld Modern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all. John Berger timecharacterdeath To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. (The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguises. John Berger nakedsightorder When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. John Berger wallreadingbook Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn't changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman. John Berger teenagerbelievesex All creation is in the art of seeing. John Berger seeingcreationart When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own. John Berger wallreadingbook You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure. John Berger vanitymirrorshands We who draw do so not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination John Berger invisibledrawsdestination Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature. John Berger eviltalkingneeds Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion. John Berger envyemotioncommon
