Synopsis
Keeping a Rendezvous by Berger, John
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Reviews
Berger (The Sense of Sight, 1985, etc.) as art critic is a maddening case. Most of the time his once-fashionable leftism falls like a caul over the paintings and photographs that he uses, literally, as pretexts for these short essays (most reprinted from The Village Voice, Harper's, etc.). Ideology and preconception will force up a fatuity like ``How then does the cinema overcome this limitation to attain its special power? It does so by celebrating what we have in common, what we share. The cinema longs to go beyond individuality''; or one such as the recommendation of love's ``cyclical time'' that opposes corporate capitalism's ``unilinear'' view of it; or a celebration of peasant ``interiority.'' Berger may write of the abattoir and excrement here, but he is a Romantic at heart: Walter Benjamin with a rucksack. The best art critics make you want to see more; Berger wants you to feel more--and his wanting before images sometimes distorts or even obscures them. On the other hand, he can on occasion bring his eyes to bear on certain painters and sculptors with private intimacy and intuition. About Pollock, Henry Moore's sculptures (``Their notorious hollows and holes are sites of a sensation of enclosure, cradling, nuzzling. Before Moore's art, as before nobody else's, we are reminded that we are mammals''), and Renoir, Berger is unusually stellar. A too-mixed bag, unbalanced mostly by political deadweight. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
While each of Berger's essays originates from a single image or idea, the resulting train of thought is held to no predictable itinerary. A trip to a Swiss zoo segues into a meditation on apes, with whom we share 99% of our DNA genetic code, and then into thoughts on birth and death. Reflections on his obsessive childhood fear that his parents might die leads to a confession about how he became a writer. As an art critic, Berger ( The Sense of Sight ) constantly surprises. He fathoms Renoir's "sweet paintings of a terrible loss" in terms of the impressionist's fears of women and of reality. He analyzes Henry Moore's sculptures as erotic monuments to the mute, pre-verbal experiences of infants. In other pieces, Berger interprets today's resurgent nationalisms and such events as miners' strikes as protests against the marginalization of the spiritual. These 25 masterful, absorbing essays link the moral to the aesthetic, the personal to the political. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Keeping a Rendezvous
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Condition: very_good. Book is in very good condition and may include minimal underlining highlighting. The book can also include "From the library of" labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys, dvds, etc. . We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service. Seller Inventory # ZBV.0679406328.VG
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Keeping a Rendezvous
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Condition: good. Fast Free Shipping â" Good condition. It may show normal signs of use, such as light writing, highlighting, or library markings, but all pages are intact and the book is fully readable. A solid, complete copy that's ready to enjoy. Seller Inventory # GWV.0679406328.G
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KEEPING A RENDEZVOUS
Published by
Pantheon Books, New York, 1991
ISBN 10: 0679406328
ISBN 13: 9780679406327
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: H. W. Gumaer, Bookseller, Canandaigua, NY, U.S.A.
Seller rating 2 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Printing, First U.S. Edition. A collection of essays, most from the 1980s by one of the best English art critics, poets and novelists, sharing his vision on painting, photography, time and reality. Top end of spine lightly bumped, lettering on spine worn in spots but still legible, some light soiling to boards, o/w boards and text are clean and unmarked, tight and square, not remaindered. Dustjacket shows slight bumping at top of spine and top corners, no tears, not price-clipped. Scarce. Collectable. Seller Inventory # 003631
Stock Image
Keeping a Rendezvous
Published by
Pantheon Books, 1991
ISBN 10: 0679406328
ISBN 13: 9780679406327
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Remarks Used Books, Pittsfield, MA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. First American Edition. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in FINE condition. "When John Berger looks at a painting, a face, or a building, he enters into it, teases its associations apart, reflects on its relationship to past, present and future, and explores the secrets hidden from our view. He sees a photograph of a sea of faces looking with grave happiness into the camera. The time is 1989 and the place Warsaw (or Prague, Leipzig, Budapest). What do these faces tell us? With whom--or what--are they keeping a rendezvous at this extraordinary moment in history, as one era has passed and a new one is dawning? Berger prods us into sharing his passion for seeking answers to questions, solutions to enigmas. In front of Giorgione's painting La Tempesta he muses about the modern tyranny of cause and effect, the nature of cyclic time, and the singular timelessness of the act of love. He looks at the paintings of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner not just as canvases but as a dialogue between two artists, perhaps the most tempestuous dialogue in the history of art. A visit to a palace built by a French postman reveals a unique masterpiece of peasant architecture. Whatever encounters his vision becomes an invitation to question, to pursue a line of thought wherever it may lead, and to discover new possibilities, new surprises, a new way of ordering reality. He does so with a sense of wonder, a profound knowledge of history and the foibles of the human heart; because he is a poet as well, he touches on the grandest of mysteries and makes us feel their vibrations." [jacket copy] "One of the major voices in contemporary art criticism---probably our most perceptive commentator on art---a civilized and stimulating companion no matter what subject happens to cross his mind."--The Philadelphia Inquirer. Fine hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in an intact NF jacket. Seller Inventory # RUB1997