John Berger in His Own Bruised Time
The late novelist and art critic asked Tom Overton to wait to write his biography until after his death. The result is deeply informative, deferential, and perceptive, sometimes lyrically so.
John Berger, a prominent art critic and novelist, passed away in 2017. He is renowned for his ideas that art is a means of creating knowledge and for challenging the Western canon. Berger's essays often read like personal letters, inviting readers to explore their own passions and imaginations. In 1972, Berger appeared in a BBC series named Ways of Seeing, where he used a television studio set to critique the museum experience.
He famously stood in front of a Botticelli reproduction, slicing a detail with a box-cutter, symbolizing the impact of technology on our interaction with images. Recently, Tom Overton's biography, John Berger: From Life, offers an in-depth look at Berger's life during the 20th century, shaped by modernization and imperialism. Overton's work is deferential and perceptive, focusing on Berger's experiences as a teenager during the Blitz and his father's role in identifying fallen soldiers' remains post-World War I.
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