Where There Are No Patterns…

bentos_sketchbookBENTO’S SKETCHBOOK
John Berger
Allen & Unwin, March 2015, RRP $29.99

How to review this book? Where to begin? In what mode to work? I have looked around at a few other reviews, and I wonder a little if most of them have missed the point. Certainly, in some instances that is to be expected. A review of Bento’s Sketchbook in a magazine of art will focus mostly on the beautiful inked and painted work, and the high quality of reproductions. Such a venue should be allowed to miss the point, or rather, they should be allowed and expected to focus on other points of special relevance.

But I wonder a little at reviews in more wordy outlets that have focused entirely on John Berger’s honest close-up examination of everyday life, or his concerned, vibrant discourse on global issues of greed and capitalism run amok. I think those reviewers have missed the particular point they might have arrived at, and how am I to go about trying to explain why, and how, and what the point was anyway.

Continue reading

  • You might also like

    • Social Fabric of New York

      If there’s one thing that Humans of New York: Stories makes clear, it’s that everyone is the hero of his or her own story. And while, yes, this is something that each of us knows, on an intellectual level, applies to every one of us, it can nevertheless cause a … Continue reading