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Description of  Landscapes: John Berger on Art

A major new work from the worlds leading writer on art Landscapes, the companion volume to John Bergers highly acclaimed Portraits, explores what art tells us about ourselves. Bergers work is an invitation to reimagine to see in different ways, writes Tom Overton in the introduction to this volume. As a master storyteller and thinker John Berger challenges readers to rethink their every assumption about the role of creativity in our lives. In this brilliant collection of diverse piecesessays, short stories, poems, translationswhich spans a lifetimes engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of seeing. He pays homage to the writers and thinkers who infuenced him, such as Walter Benjamin, Rosa Luxemburg and Bertolt Brecht. His expansive perspective takes in artistic movements and individual artistsfrom the Renaissance to the presentwhile never neglecting the social and political context of their creation. Berger pushes at the limits of art writing, demonstrating beautifully how his artists eye makes him a storyteller in these essays, rather than a critic. With landscape as an animating, liberating metaphor rather than a rigid defnition, this collection surveys the aesthetic landscapes that have informed, challenged and nourished John Bergers understanding of the world. Landscapesalongside Portraitscompletes a tour through the history of art that will be an intellectual benchmark for many years to come.