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The Moment of Cubism

Brief Description
John Berger is one of the most passionate and incisive writers on the relationship between art and politics. Whether looking at Vermeer in his studio, or Poussin's poignant meditation on death, the contradictions of Rodin's sculpture, Berger was always able to see the threads that bound... Read More
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The Revolutionary Nature of Art - from the groundbreaking author of Ways of Seeing

The Revolutionary Nature of Art - from the groundbreaking author of Ways of Seeing

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

John Berger is one of the most passionate and incisive writers on the relationship between art and politics. Whether looking at Vermeer in his studio, or Poussin's poignant meditation on death, the contradictions of Rodin's sculpture, Berger was always able to see the threads that bound the individual life, their passion for creativity and the social and political contexts they were working within. The Moment of Cubism, originally published in 1969, is considered to be one of his important collections of art criticism.

Also provocative, in the title essay, Berger shows that Cubism was a moment rather than a movement, that came and went without the consent of its key artistsβ€”Picasso, Braque. He also makes a case for its revolutionary influence. Alongside portraits and investigations of more classical artists, in advance of his later works such as Ways of Seeing and Understanding a Photograph, Berger is still able to find the political within the image and to help us look at the world in new ways.

Series: The Essential John Berger

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    From the War on Terror to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, Berger explores the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance. Visceral and passionate, Hold Everything Dear is a profound meditation on the far extremes of human behaviour, and the underlying despair. Looking at Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq, he makes an impassioned attack...
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    Corker's Freedom
    John Berger brings us this tender and bittersweet novel, Corker's Freedom. It is a book of dreams of freedom and romance, dreams that intoxicate and redeem, dreams that have the power to exalt their dreamers or dash them against hard truth. It is the unforgettable, often comical portrait of a dreamer, one William Corker, the genteel proprietor of a London...
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  • Goya's Last Portrait/A Question of Geography
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    Goya's Last Portrait/A Question of Geography
    Goya’s Last Portrait presents the artist struggling to comprehend the relationship between his life and his work. Having painted humanity at its most violent and depraved amid the horrors of war, and also depicted the vibrancy of aristocratic life, Goya faces an overwhelming question: Has he changed the world or merely caught its reflection? The Question of Geography is set...
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    $2999
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  • The Moment of Cubism
    Pre-order
    The Moment of Cubism
    John Berger is one of the most passionate and incisive writers on the relationship between art and politics. Whether looking at Vermeer in his studio, or Poussin's poignant meditation on death, the contradictions of Rodin's sculpture, Berger was always able to see the threads that bound the individual life, their passion for creativity and the social and political contexts they...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Pre-order
    Out 4 Aug 2026
  • Landscapes
    Pre-order
    Landscapes
    In this brilliant collection of diverse worksβ€”essays, short stories, poems, translationsβ€”which spans a lifetime’s engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of seeing. He challenges readers to rethink their every assumption about the role of creativity in our lives. Paying homage to the writers and thinkers who influenced him, he pushes at the...
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    $2999
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    Out 1 Sep 2026
  • Bento's Sketchbook
    The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinozaβ€”also known as Benedict or Bento de Spinozaβ€”spent the most intense years of his short life writing. He also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notesβ€”but no drawings. For years, without knowing what its pages might hold, John Berger has imagined finding Bento’s sketchbook, wanting to see the...
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    $2999
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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781804298633

Publisher: Verso Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 April 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Verso Books

Edition: New edition

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 10.0mm

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 134g

Pages: 160

About the Author

Storyteller, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, dramatist and critic, John Berger (1926-2017) was one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. His many books include Ways of Seeing; the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours; Here Is Where We Meet; the Booker Prize-winning novel G; Hold Everything Dear; the Man Booker-longlisted From A to X; and A Seventh Man.

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  • Ways of Seeing
    Based on the groundbreaking BBC television series, Ways of Seeing by John Berger is an innovative and compelling examination of how we perceive visual art. Published as part of the celebrated Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics, this book delves into the intricate relationships between art, society, and individuals. The opening premise, "Seeing comes before words. The child...
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  • Confabulations
    Confabulations is a profound exploration of language and its intrinsic ties to the human experience. Renowned writer and critic John Berger invites readers into a rich tapestry where language, thought, art, music, storytelling, and political discourse intertwine. Berger, whose work has significantly shaped our understanding of visual language, now turns his reflective eye to the fabric of language itself. Within...
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  • Portraits
    Portraits by John Berger is an intricate and personal history of art that spans from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to the revolutionary conceptual artists of the 21st century. Offering an unparalleled journey through the epochs of visual culture, Berger masterfully stitches together a narrative that intertwines the evolution of artistic expression with the socio-political contexts that shaped...
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  • Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible
    We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks. In this series of remarkable pieces from across his career, John Berger celebrates and dissects the close links between art and society and the individual. Few writers give a more vivid and moving sense of how we make art and how art makes us. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some...
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  • The Red Tenda of Bologna
    Fifty new books at Β£1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. It's an improbable city, Bologna – like one you might walk through after you have died. A dreamlike meditation on memory, food, paintings, a fond uncle and the improbable beauty of Bologna, from the visionary thinker...
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  • Understanding a Photograph
    A selection of John Berger's writings on photography, including incredible images, edited & selected by Geoff Dyer. John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues, in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and...
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  • The Foot of Clive
    In the centre of a 1960s hospital ward sits a curtained-off bed, guarded by a policeman. In it lies a murderer, hidden from view and likely to die before he can be hanged for his crime. In the closed, regimented society of the ward, his invisible presence fractures and rebuilds the way the other patients see the world. In the...
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  • From A to X
    In the dusty, ramshackle town of Suse lives A'ida. Her insurgent husband Xavier has been imprisoned. Resolute, sensuous, and tender, A'ida's letters to the man she loves tell of daily events in the town, and of its motley collection of inhabitants whose lives flow through hers. But the town is under threat, and as a faceless power inexorably encroaches from...
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  • Hold Everything Dear
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  • A Fortunate Man
    In 1966, John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall. Sassall is a fortunate manβ€”his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, and the line between his life and his work is happily blurred. In A Fortunate Man, Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr...
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  • Case Closed! Neuroanatomy
    This carefully-designed textbook offers a brand-new approach to learning neuroanatomy for medical students and newly-qualified doctors, particularly those considering a career in neurology and neurosurgery. Promoting active learning and taking inspiration from other popular case-based formats, readers are encouraged to overcome their inherent β€˜neurophobia’. The accessible text and practical examples, unencumbered by esoteric minutiae, support students and trainees in developing...
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    Corker's Freedom
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