Word: berger
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Berger's "seeing" has been notably unique in all his work, his place in art criticism secure but set apart. In "Lost Off Cape Wrath," one of the last essays in this collection, Berger hints at his own tenets in art criticism...
...John Berger...
...Berger discusses the work of Henry Moore in these same terms of totality in art versus empty and emptying rhetoric in art. Moore's art became "distracted" when "no energy pushed out from within." Harvard public relations (which has exploited the Moore in front of Lamont to full advantage) would probably wince in reading that Berger blames the cliched attitudes towards Moore on "so many blind glossy colour shots showing reclining figures with holes through them on cultural sites throughout the world...
...Berger refuses to submit not only to the reductiveness of the commercial reading of art but also to the oversimplification of the "politically correct" reading of art. He is certainly willing to admit sociopolitical truths in his writing. He acknowledges in his essay. "The Erogenous Zone" that "the visual may play a more important role in the sexuality of men than women, but this is difficult to assess because of the extent of sexist traditions in modern image-making...
...will not allow sociopolitical agendas to stand primary in the interpretation of art. Of Renoir, Berger writes, "Feminist reasoning applied retrospectively to Renoir is too easy." Feminists might play up Renoir quotes like "the best exercise for a woman is to kneel down and scrub the floor" without bothering to uncover the profound and across-the-board fearful fanaticism of which that quote is only one facet. Berger effectively warns us not to let our methodologies for "seeing" obstruct our sight...