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 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 artists—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.