From the author of the modern classics Ways of Seeing and To the Wedding (“Wherever I live in the world . . . I have this book with me.”—Michael Ondaatje), a singularly conceived, beautifully written consideration of how we can refresh the way we perceive our world.

Over the last half century, John Berger has created a body of work like no other, distinguished, as Susan Sontag wrote, by its “attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience.” In Bento’s Sketchbook Berger continues his exploration of the relationship between experience and expression, giving us a book of dazzling, inventive, and, ultimately, deeply moving impressions of how stories embedded in visual art provide us with the impetus to see and understand our world in extra-ordinary ways. Using as his jumping-off point the sketchbooks of the great philosopher Baruch Spinoza—books believed to exist but never found—Berger moves between his own quotidian experience of seeing and the imagined experience of Spinoza in a narrative that weaves its own surprising, poignant picture, inviting us to contemplate the mystery of what and how we see.

◎ 作者介绍

作者：约翰·伯格（John Berger，1926－2017）

英国艺术评论家、小说家、画家和诗人，1926年出生于英国伦敦。1944至1946年在英国军队服役。退役后入切尔西艺术学院和伦敦中央艺术学院学习。1940年代后期，伯格以画家身份开始其创作生涯，于伦敦多个画廊举办展览。1948年至1955年，他以教授绘画为业，并为伦敦著名杂志《新政治家》撰稿，迅速成为英国最有影响力的艺术批评家之一。

1972年，他的电视系列片《观看之道》在BBC播出，同时出版配套的图文书，遂成艺术批评的经典之作。小说《G》为他赢得了布克奖及詹姆斯·泰特·布莱克纪念奖。2008年，伯格凭借小说《A致X：给狱中情人的温柔书简》再次获得布克奖提名。2017年1月2日，约翰·伯格在法国安东尼去世。