About the Author

John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels & stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, "A Painter of Our Time", was published in 1958, & since then his books have included the novel "G.", which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and he lives in a small village in the French Alps.

Reviews

"It’s a book about art history and the media, but it’s also a magic trick." -- The New Republic

"Berger fulfils the roles of a philosopher, listener, and somewhat of a magician as he makes tantalising worlds appear, and illusions vanish." -- Pratibha Rai, Oxford Culture Review

"Berger reveals a dreamworld that we all move through continuously, a visual bombardment designed to conjure deep feelings of inadequacy and desire, the long seduction by capitalism upon its hapless subjects." -- Olivia Laing author of The Garden Against Time

"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace." —Geoff Dyer

"...perhaps the most bold, clear, and widely renowned explanation of art’s entanglement with capitalism." -- The Paris Review

"Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation." —Peter Fuller, Arts Review

"Over the past sixty years, the great John Berger — art critic, essayist, screenwriter, novelist, poet, and artist — has made immeasurable contributions to our understanding of culture and politics, never more potently than in Ways of Seeing." -The Village Voice

On John Berger:

“In contemporary English letters he seems to me peerless.” -- Susan Sontag

“We learned from him to see that basic assumptions about everything—work, play, art, commerce—are hidden in the surrounding culture of images.” -- Jane Gaines

"One of the most influential intellectuals of our time" -- Observer (London)