How to use John Berger’s ‘language of images’ on Trump, polar bears and Kim Kardashian

In the 70s, the late critic revolutionised our appreciation of the visual arts. How do his ideas translate to contemporary culture?

John Berger, who died on Monday, wrote and said a lot of smart things, but he will be remembered longest for his 1972 BBC television series and book Ways of Seeing. The TV series belongs to the pixellated past, but the brilliantly designed book published alongside it by Penguin, with boldly montaged illustrations and stark, pithy text, is a bestselling modern classic.

As Berger put it, we are visual animals who see before we learn to read and, even as adults, get our most basic orientation in the world with our eyes, which makes images extraordinarily powerful.

Related: John Berger, art critic and author, dies aged 90

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