About Looking

About Looking Synopsis

The centenary edition, with a newly commissioned introduction by Berger's biographer, Tom Overton.

'Instant readability . . . [Berger] makes one see [paintings] as statements or questions in a living language.' New Statesman
'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Observer
'Berger is a writer one demands to know more about . . . an intriguing and powerful mind and talent' New York Times

As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization.

In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti?

In asking these and other questions, Berger alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.