John Berger: The Art of Looking

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John Berger has long been a big name in art criticism and the documentary recently featured on BBC 4 titled ‘The Art of Looking’ looks at and discusses with Berger his life achievements. There is particular emphasis on the present, and the way that he has re-evaluated ideas of looking and seeing as a result of his recent cataract operation.

One of the things that particularly interested me was the way a colleague of Berger’s spoke about his appreciation for candid photography. When sourcing images for his books he tended to steer away from stereotypically beautiful photographs, instead favouring ones that didn’t have the feel of being staged. This is an important aspect of photography to explore as it appeals to a certain nostalgia everyone possesses and gives further validity in its authenticity.

Being so politically driven, Berger left Britain in the 1960s to live in a small village in the French Alps. Here he and his wife found solitude in a quieter life and he spent all of his time immersed in his writing. His son speaks in the documentary of how Berger never seemed to be completely at home in France or England, but the political state of France at the time was much more preferable to the turmoil Thatcher was creating. In 1972 Berger won the Booker Prize for his book ‘G,’ and donated half of his winnings to the Black Panther movement in America.

It’s inspiring seeing a man of his age still passionate about his life’s work. It was also reassuring to hear him speak of his education, and of how he didn’t start writing art criticism until he was 25. This means that I safely have 3 years to figure out what I’m going to spend my life doing! But seriously, the documentary was really beneficial to furthering my approach to ways of seeing and taught me to always approach images as an “interrogation of appearances.”

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