About Looking

After reading just one essay from this collection I fell in love with John Berger's books. It extends beyond his criticism to the lyrical novels. What makes the writing so remarkable is its emotion, even in the driest of venues he manages to find the heart of his subject and place that on the page with concision. These pieces are thoughts caught in a sentence from his uninhibited perspective. The eulogy for Giacometti describes how the meaning of the work has changed by the artist's physical absence. You have taken Giacometti's view point while he is now in the painting returning your gaze.

Berger's essays are essential reading for art lovers and anyone who wants to better appreciate the world around them. Here he explains Magritte, Rodin, Francis Bacon, Walt Disney and zoos in prose that feels like a clear rushing stream.

There is great stillness in Berger's prose. But after a few pages, his statements start to sing and go on singing." -- New Republic

"Instant readability ... [Berger] makes one see [paintings] as statements or questions in a living language." -- New Statesman

As a novelist, art critic, 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. 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? In asking these and other questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Distributor: Random House, Inc.
Publication Date: 01-08-1992
Pages: 224
Measurements: 8.03in X 5.13in X .65in X .4506lb