John Berger Quotes

Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work.

I don't know if it's art, but I know I like it.

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it.

To be full of joy when looking at an oeuvre is not a little thing.

Without art there is no hope.

Understanding is a form of blindness. Good art, I think, can never be understood.

To explain away the mystery of a great painting - if such a feat were possible - would do irreparable harm... If there is no mystery, then there is no poetry, the quality I value above all else in art.

If the mystical lovers of the arts, who consider all criticism dissection and all dissection destruction of enjoyment, thought logically, an exclamation like "Goodness alive!" would be the best criticism of the most deserving work of art. There are critiques which say nothing but that, only they do so more extensively.

The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life...

I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness; and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.

Art is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds

When art seems to be empty of meaning, as no doubt some of the abstract painting of our own day actually does seem, what the painting says, indeed what the artist is shrieking at the top of his voice, is that life has become empty of all rational content and coherence, and that, in times like these, is far from a meaningless statement.

I'm not trying to spell out a story. I still think you feel the painting, and the reason you read the mark is because you also feel the mark.

What's so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn't understand. A painter doesn't see everything that he has put in his painting.

Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.

Painting, for me, when it really 'happens,' is as miraculous as any natural phenomenon - as say, a lettuce leaf. By 'happens,' I mean the painting in which the inner aspect of man and his outer aspects interlock.

Beauty makes one lose one's head. Poetry is born of this decapitation

All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.

Art is a spiritual, immaterial respite from the hardships of life.

I love art. It really changes my mood and wakes me up.

Even luxuries are arranged according to ideas and ideals, to make them reflect as much of thought-life as possible - and this is Art.

I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.

Good art should elicit a response of 'Huh? Wow!' as opposed to ‘Wow! Huh?'

Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.

The first impression of a work of art is its otherness from reality.