The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare.
Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes how drawing can reveal connections between different ideas or subjects, similar to how metaphors in poetry link disparate concepts.
John Berger suggests that drawing serves as a means of discovering and understanding the relationships between various elements of life and art. Just as metaphors in poetry help to reunite and clarify ideas that may have become disconnected, drawing allows the artist to explore and illustrate the connections that exist within the visual and conceptual world, enriching our understanding and appreciation of both.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an art class to inspire students about the deeper meaning behind their drawings.
More from John Berger
All quotes βUnlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
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Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!
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I cannot say why I wanted to paint. The only answer is in the pictures themselves.
If an essay has a 'motive,' it is linked more to happenstance and opportunity than to the driven will. A genuine essay is not a doctrinaire tract or a propaganda effort or a broadside.
If you're going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to know who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't like you. No matter who you are.