This multi-layered portrait is a fitting tribute to the man behind Ways of Seeing<\/p>\n
The cultural critic John Berger was still alive and kicking when he donated his literary archive \u2013 heaped boxes of letters and notepads, sketches and scripts \u2013 to the British Library in 2009. From his home in the Alps, he proceeded to liaise with the collection\u2019s curator, Tom Overton, sorting each item and recounting the wild stories behind them. When Overton sought permission to write Berger\u2019s biography, though, the critic insisted that he wait a few years. Death changes the relationship between the writer and his subject. More often than not, it complicates and enriches it. Berger \u2013 who spent much of his career in passionate conversation with the past \u2013 probably knew that better than anyone.<\/p>\n
Berger typically described himself as a storyteller, an elastic job title which allowed him to swing between fiction and poetry, essays and screenplays. Implicitly, too, the term helped frame his criticism as something propulsive and inclusive, an invitation to dance as opposed to a judgment from on high. Berger had no time for the \u201cgreat man\u201d theory of art as espoused by the popular historian Kenneth Clark and instead urged his audience to view each piece as a manifestation of society and politics: the tainted fruit of capitalism, inseparable from the marketplace. Oil paintings were status symbols. Nudes were the product of the lusty male gaze. Looking itself was a political act. \u201cYou cannot reply to me,\u201d he would tell 1970s TV viewers, breaking the fourth wall to highlight the medium\u2019s limitations. He liked pointing out the mechanics behind the manufacture of art, demystifying the process to better appreciate its results.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/e17fc43e079a281b6c42eb14a77ebb042ea858d3\/183_243_3335_2667\/master\/3335.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=353545dd7b03e33d8d78ec124c07e548\" "\\"John")
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