The Color of the Cosmos: John Berger on Art and the Mystery of Creativity

Abstract

"In this essay I will focus on the worldview that is invoked in John Berger’s critical writings. I aim to examine the extent to which this worldview contains an implicit creation story. Some aspects of a creation story have appeared more explicitly in his recent essays, and I will consider whether these elements are pervasive or representative of a fundamental shift in outlook. This will involve aligning the recent terms in Berger’s criticism with the concepts such as truth, reality and place that dominated his earlier writing. In particular, it will reflect on the potential parallels between the overtly political texts with the more ontological ruminations, and ask whether both modes of address are related to a fundamental cosmology. Finally, it will also pose a further link between creation stories and what I call the cosmopolitan imaginary.... Hence I will explore the interplay between the political and cosmological parameters in Berger’s writing. This will proceed by asking a question that moves in a kind of helix motion. How does art offer an image of the world, and how does the imagination create a world?"