In it, a woman weighs out objects of wealth, pearls and gold, but Berger insists that she’s in fact weighing out time, moments of precious life itself. In one of his few counter-examples, Berger chooses a painting by Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance. Love of art is not, as we assume now in our culture, a neutral or positive virtue, or an expression separate from capitalist consumption. In the third part of the 1970s BBC series Ways of Seeing, John Berger focuses on the tradition of the oil painting, claiming that it is a tradition which is more than anything about giving weight to ownership, heft to luxury. All of the fascinations out there, away from where we are sitting.”Ĭentral Question: Is it possible to live a creative life of both freedom and comfort?

Why did I get so dressed up when no one would see me? It is better that way, to give fancy things to my writing and to my own mind and ramblings, better than wasting them on people I don’t like, and their formal, grand rooms, while it snows outside.

Preparing for writing and the walk I would take just after breakfast. Format: 176 pp., hardcover with dust jacket Size: 5 X 7.5″ Price: $25 Publisher : Farrar, Straus & Giroux Number characters named for women in literature : four Number of times the narrator wonders if her leftovers are worthy of being painted as a still life: one Other books by the author : I Go To Some Hollow, Creature Representative Passage : “I was putting on my burgundy dress.

Indelicacy by Amina Cain