The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza—also known as Benedict or Bento de Spinoza—spent the most intense years of his short life writing. A sporadic draughtsman, he also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes—but no drawings.

For years, John Berger has imagined finding Bento's sketchbook without knowing what its pages might hold, but wanting to see the drawings alongside his surviving words. When one day a friend gave Berger a beautiful, virgin sketchbook, John said “This is Bento's!” and he began to draw, taking his inspiration from the philosopher's vision.

The result is Bento's Sketchbook—an exploration of the practice of drawing and a meditation on how art guides our gaze to the world: to flowers, to the human body, to the pitilessness of the new world order and the forms of resistance to it.

◎ 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。