Art and Revolution

by John Berger

You might ask me as I ask myself why I have spent the last year working on a book about a Russian sculptor whom scarcely anyone outside Russia has heard of. And anyway, you say, how can I, the reader, judge the work of a sculptor solely by photographs, never having seen a single work by him?

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Russia, Biography, Politics, Philosophy, History

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text.

Later he was self exiled to continental Europe, living between the french Alps in summer and the suburbs of Paris in winter. Since then, his production has increased considerably, including a variety of genres, from novel to social essay, or poetry. One of the most common themes that appears on his books is the dialectics established between modernity and memory and loss,

Another of his most remarkable works has been the trilogy titled Into Their Labours, that includes the books Pig Earth (1979), Once In Europa (1983) Lilac And Flag (1990). With those books, Berger makes a meditation about the way of the peasant, that changes one poverty for another in the city. This theme is also observed in his novel King, but there his focus is more in the rural diaspora and the bitter side of the urban way of life.

Reviews

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

J. Berger’in ilk kitaplarından biri, sanat eleştirmenliği yaptığı dönemde 1969’da yazmış. Kitabın ilk baskısı 100 kitap yayınladıktan sonra söz verdiği üzere kapanan efsanevi Yankı Yayınlarından 1974’de, okuduğum kitap 3. baskısı ise 2007’de Agora Kitaplığı’ndan çıkmış ve bir daha da baskısı yapılmamış. Halbuki çok ilginç bir kitap “Sanat ve Devrim”.

Kitabın adı genelleme yapıyorsa da Berger’in anlattıkları Sovyet Rusya’daki plastik sanatlar ve bu sanatla uğraşan bir avuç sanatçı arasında ilginç ama unutulmuş, pek tanınmayan Ernst Neizvestny adlı heykeltraşın sanatını ve eserlerini içeriyor.

Berger Sovyet Rusya’da sosyalist gerçekçilikte sanat ile propaganda arasındaki ilişkinin karıştırıldığını, bu nedenle daha az etkileyici ve daha az kitleye ulaşan heykel ve resim gibi plastik sanatların gelişmediğini, bunun yerine propaganda yönü ağır basan afiş, sinema, müzik, şiir başta olmak üzere edebiyata önem verildiğini, bu alanlarda yaşanan ilerleme ve yaratıcılığın heykel ve resim sanatında yaşanmadığını ileri sürüyor. Bu tezini ise Stalinci bağnazlığa, onun sultası altındaki gerici Akademi’nin tutumuna bağlamaktadır.

Bilindiği gibi John Berger kendisini marksist olarak tanımlamaktadır. Hatta 2017’de ölmeden önce verdiği son demeçlerde Sovyet Rusyanın yıkılması, Doğu Bloğunun çökmesinin bile marksizme inancını değiştirmediğini ısrarla belirtmiştir. Bu nedenle yazdıklarını, düşüncelerini soldaki ideolojiler açısından çok önemli bulmaktayım. Bu arada ben John Berger’i klasik marksistten ziyade güleryüzlü sosyalist olarak görmekteyim.

Bu kitabın SSCB’deki görsel sanat ve sanatçı hakkında önemli noktalara ışık tutması, özellikle Stalin yönetiminin değerlendirilmesi açısından iyi bir kaynak olduğunu düşünüyorum.

[juch]

This guy rules. Helped me finally understand how to love a work of art for its politics without requiring it to be didactic, through his distinction between short and long term art - long term art requires contradiction. Also loved how he wrote about how the sculptures, even though they weren’t shown at scale, were inherently public. And he says something beautiful about how life requires contradiction, death is the only utopia, while believing firmly that the endurance of oppressed ppl will triumph and bring us to the next stage. The last 5 pages of this book he stops doing art criticism and just writes about how we must end imperialism or else the only logical conclusion is suicide

[Sumant Salunke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid book with a really moralistic ending. I’m not calling Berger’s commitment to anti-imperialism into question, but I just found it to be a quite simplistic and reductive reading of Neizvestny’s sculptures. Really fascinating first chapter, though, and it’s always such a privilege to learn from the way he critiques art.

[Viktor Sidorov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Стычка с Хрущевым на выставке к 30-летию Союза художников Москвы стала своеобразным звездным часом Неизвестного. "Вы все педерасты!" "Дайте мне бабу, Никита Сергеевич, и я вам докажу обратное…»

Первая часть книги написана блестяще. Берджер крупными мазками описывает историю русского искусства от Петра I до соцреализма времен Хрущева. Очерк написан высокопрофессионально, его можно разбирать на цитаты для лекций по истории искусства.

Творчество Эрнста Неизвестного помещается в контекст как политики своего времени, так и отдельно проходящей эволюции искусства. Берджер делит работы Неизвестного на удачные и неудачные. Такое деление аргументировано и у автора есть собственная интерпретация творчества советского ваятеля. Феномен Неизвестного безусловно привлекает к себе внимание, поскольку он, как и Бродский, был не признан официальными институтами государства, а значит был зачислен в разряд «оппозиции".

Берджер показывает, что скульптуры Неизвестного затрагивают фундаментальные темы человеческого бытия. Стойкость, тело, секс. В небольших скульптурах с трудно угадываемыми формами запрятаны пласты смыслов, которые интерпретирует Берджер. И лишь финал книги-очерка обескураживает. В оправдание автора-эрудита лишь напомним, что написал он свое произведение в 1969 году…

Если бы не финал, повествующий о том как невыносимо жить в мире империалистического неравенства (не забываем что книга 1969 года!), то я бы поставил книге 10/10.

Как итог: читать стоит. Задался вопросом где посмотреть скульптуры Неизвестного в России. Часть мыслей Берджера обязательно уйдут в мои лекции по искусству и политике.

[Robert Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book about a sculptor, Ernst Kiezvestny, almost completely unknown in the West by one of our best-known critics, John Berger. I talked about it in a book video here: http://www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com/2...

[Eylem Yilmaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heykeltıraş Neizvestny'nin hayatından kesitler eşliğinde Rus plastik sanatı üzerine kritikler içeriyor. Berger'in dilini seviyorum; sade, diktesiz ve bu nedenle etkileyici.

İkon sanatından akademizme, Tatlin, Gezginler, naturalizm vs gerçekçilik incelemeleri...

Beni en çok etkileyen iki kısım Gezginler ve sosyalist gerçekçilik üzerine tespitleriydi.

[Jacob Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really strong beginning to this book, Berger’s run down of Russian history through the lens of art HITS. He hypes up Neizvestny like a mythical figure. Super romantic sense of artistic struggle against the state.

Berger doubles down on this dynamic at the end in a good ol anti-imperialist rant. This closing goes hard on its own, but feels a bit tacked on in the context of the whole book. Berger sees Neizvestny’s work (or perhaps his work ethic) as emblematic of the larger struggle of most peoples against imperialism and oppression.

This is true, sure, and a big take away of the book. However, I think the closing falls a bit flat.. Just before this broad rant on oppression, Berger offers some criticism of Neizvestny’s work. All very valid, all very important, good section to read -But, this totally fucks up the hype he has built.

I think if we got another anecdote about Neizvestny and his struggle to create. His ability to create despite the system that’s steps on him. Something that ramps up the hype a little. If we got some of that before this big broad moralistic pontification on imperialism at the end, then it would feel a little tighter as a work.

Def a great read, highly recommend. I think that the near perfection of craft at the top end of the book makes the disruption of flow more glaring at the bottom.

[Paul Vautravers · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this work John Berger has that amazing quality of pointing out observations or concepts which, after being articulated, appear to have always been true and obviously so. In that sense, I thought his high-level analyses of Neizvestny’s art and of the stifling academic art in post and pre revolutionary Russia extremely interesting, beyond the bounds of both those areas. In particular, his description of Neizvestny measuring his life not towards death but starting from it stood out:
“Those who measure towards death become very aware of the precariousness of life; Neizvestny, by contrast, is aware of the extraordinary adaptability and obstinacy of life”

I felt the ending of the book, beginning as a broader conclusion on the stature of Neizvestny’s work and its political role, before focusing exclusively on Imperialism, was slightly weaker than the earlier parts. While resistance to imperialism intuitively feels aligned with the thrust of the artist’s work, I felt not enough effort to substantiate this point was made, in particular from an understanding from the artist rather than in what Berger sees in the work.

The book contains beautiful plates from the artists work throughout. I found it to be a great introduction to art criticism, without any background in this topic.

It would be a 4.5 if I could vote that!

[Tabea Werhahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

On sculpture

“Nothing less is involved than the commemoration of the present values of that society addressed to its future, a commemoration which is not, as with the other arts, merely presumed but is intrinsic to the immediate impact - or lack of it - of the work as experienced today. A State can be judged by the future its sculpture sets out to promise it.”

“Images cannot be ideas but they can play the part of signs, or, to be more precise, coexist with ideas in signs and, if ideas are not yet present, they can keep their future place open for them and make its contours apparent negatively”

“This is what joins men together in resistance: a resistance which, if false ideologies are discarded and rendered undeceptive, we can find in the body itself. All false ideologies rely upon a facile optimism: an optimism which denies the inevitability of contradiction, and therefore denies life itself. Optimism must always be specific. Exploitation can be destroyed. Contradictions should be the condition of life and development, not the cause of death and hopelessness deprivation. But the only utopia is death, because it is without contradiction.”

[vasja · Rating 4 out of 5]

понимая, что я беру в руки книгу об искусстве в контексте политики, всё равно оказалась не подготовленной к тому, чтобы её всецело понять. показались интересными рассуждения о природе скульптуры, о её положении среди других видов искусства. первая часть — превосходный очерк о состоянии советского искусства на 1968 год, о его связи с историей русского искусства в целом. подробный разбор мотивов и тем в творчестве неизвестного во второй части.

читать было тяжело; и сама материя, и язык, которыми оперирует критик сложно воспринимаются, но вынести из небольшого текста можно очень много всего: от работы с формальными искусствоведческими понятиями, до подхода к анализу произвед��ний в политическом контексте.

[Irmak Zileli · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Berger’den okuduğum kitaplara bir yenisini eklemenin mutluluğu 🍀 Sanat ve Devrim kitabında Berger Sovyet döneminin heykel sanatçılarından Ernst Neizvestny’nin eserleri üzerinden gerçekçilik ve sosyalist gerçekçilik arasındaki farklara değiniyor. Bu bölüm ve üslup-form-içerik ilişkisini tartıştığı bölüm çok yararlı. Sadece heykel değil, edebiyat ve sanatın diğer alanlarına dair de düşünme imkanı sunuyor. Meseleyi karmaşıklaştırmayan ama derin işleyen anlatımıyla tipik bir Berger kitabı. #okudumbitti #okumaönerisi #kitap #kitapönerisi #bookstagram #book #booklover #inzivadayımokuyorum #kültürelçalışmalar #johnberger #heykelsanatı #stalindönemi #sosyalistgerçekçilik #gerçekçilik

[Ben Bush]

Read for a class w Geoff Dyer. The overview of Russian art history in here was fascinating. Peter the Great imposing western European art styles from the top-down in the 18th century. The idea that Communism was able to supplant capitalism in Russia in part because capitalism had itself so recently supplanted feudalism and wasn't thought of as all that permanent. The repressive art policy of Stalinism. Neizvestny's actual art seemed kinda bad to me and wasn't all that interesting.

[Juan A. Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Is this how an essay on a sculptor's work should end? The sculpture being relegated to represent a phase in the world struggle against imperialism? I believe that nothing is more important than this struggle. It is to this that in direct and devious ways we should devote all our energy. For those who cannot do so the logical conclusion is suicide."

[Özge Günaydın · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her zamanki bilge ve akıcı lisanıyla berger okuması
Rus Heykeltraş’ın tüm sanatını devrin siyasi şartlarıyla okuyan berger müthiş bir eser vermiş

[Nana Aramyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful description of the epoch, art state and conditions of development, excellent analysis of Neizvestny's oeuvre. Absolutely great job. Thank you!

[Heath Nevergold · Rating 5 out of 5]

A relevant read ... the life and work of Neizvestny and the criticism and context of Berger are something to experience.

[Isabella Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this topic super interesting as I am incredibly interested in 20th century history and the Cold War. However, it was sooo difficult and a heavy read.

[Peter Rowe]

Mad interesting i fw how Berger writes

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love a good picture book.

[maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

berger's use of the english language is unmatched by anyone else in literature history. i love you i love you i love you

[James Lofthouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two session-er

Happy to single handedly raise the rating of this book.

[Tina Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea that art can be a transgressive ACTION, not just a tool or a communication. Berger does a terrific job of exploring that.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sure I'll say this again somewhere in my reviews, but read any John Berger you can. He's fantastic. (Seminal work: Ways Of Seeing)

[Ippolit · Rating 1 out of 5]

hypocrisy