The Shape of a Pocket Quotes

“What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.”
― John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket

“The impulse to paint comes neither from observation nor from the soul (which is probably blind) but from an encounter: the encounter between painter and model: even if the model is a mountain or a shelf of empty medicine bottles.”
― John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket

“The collaboration which sometimes follows is seldom based on good will: usually on desire, rage, fear, pity or longing. The modern illusion concerning painting (which post-modernism has done nothing to correct) is that the artist is the creator. Rather he is a reciever. What seems like creaton is the act of giving form to what he has recieved.”
― John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket