Landscapes by John Berger

Author:John Berger [Berger, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I am well aware of the schematic nature of this brief survey. Is not Delacroix in some senses a transitional figure between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? And was not Raphael another transitional figure who confounds such simple categories? The scheme, however, is true enough to help us appreciate the nature of the change which Cubism represented.

The metaphorical model of Cubism is the diagram: the diagram being a visible, symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearances: but these too will be treated symbolically as signs, not as imitations or re-creations.

The model of the diagram differs from that of the mirror in that it suggests a concern with what is not self-evident. It differs from the model of the theatre stage in that it does not have to concentrate upon climaxes but can reveal the continuous. It differs from the model of the personal account in that it aims at a general truth.

The Renaissance artist imitated nature. The Mannerist and Classic artist reconstructed examples from nature in order to transcend nature. The nineteenth-century artist experienced nature. The Cubist realised that his awareness of nature was part of nature.

Heisenberg speaks as a modern physicist: ‘Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves: it describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning.’12 Similarly, the frontal facing of nature became inadequate in art.

How did the Cubists express their intimation of the new relation existing between man and nature?

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