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.

◎ 作者介紹

作者：約翰·伯格（John Berger，1926－2017）

英國藝術評論傢、小說傢、畫傢和詩人，1926年齣生於英國倫敦。1944至1946年在英國軍隊服役。退役後入切爾西藝術學院和倫敦中央藝術學院學習。1940年代後期，伯格以畫傢身份開始其創作生涯，於倫敦多個畫廊舉辦展覽。1948年至1955年，他以教授繪畫為業，並為倫敦著名雜誌《新政治傢》撰稿，迅速成為英國最有影響力的藝術批評傢之一。

1972年，他的電視係列片《觀看之道》在BBC播齣，同時齣版配套的圖文書，遂成藝術批評的經典之作。小說《G》為他贏得瞭布剋奬及詹姆斯·泰特·布萊剋紀念奬。2008年，伯格憑藉小說《A緻X：給獄中情人的溫柔書簡》再次獲得布剋奬提名。2017年1月2日，約翰·伯格在法國安東尼去世。