Tag: john berger

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ricdragon:

“Painting is the art which reminds us that time and the visible come into being together, as a pair. The place of their coming into being is the human mind, which can coordinate events into time sequence and appearances into a world seen.

With this coing into being of time and the visible, a dialogue between presence and absence begins. We all live this dialogue.”

From Success and Failure of Picasso by John Berger, first published by Penguin Books, London in 1965 and then by Granta Books , London 1992

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All great Works, the Works that can hold us in their thrall indefinitely, are similarly close to what they are after. The old man’s (Titian’s) painting of dogs, one of Rothko’s late, large paintings of a coloured glow, or a Hokusai drawing of a couple fucking, are all equally close to their aim. They are as close as one can get. In theory, something could be closer (the distance is still considerable), but then there would be, could be, no image – because at a closer distance, you can no longer separate, no longer resist the colossal gravitational pull of the ‘model’ – whatever that model is, a pup, transcendent light, or the act of fucking. When you are so close that you are touching all the time, there can be no art. And when you are really far away, there’s no energy in what is made, it’s merely a ritual object, because there’s no touching at all.

(via ricdragon)

John Berger, Berger on Drawing

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A drawing of a tree shows, not a tree, but a tree-being-looked-at. … Within the instant of the sight of a tree is established a life-experience.

John Berger (via ricdragon)