A poet and novelist, critic and art historian, art theorist and practitioner, director, actor, and television presenter (plus, of course, a publicist and social activist, aesthete and leftist, Marxist and French farmer, wit, and, ultimately, cult figure), John Berger created (synthesized, structured) a distinctive style and method of storytelling in which all manner of art forms, artistic schools and movements, and individual creative biographies play the role of characters and plot devices. The author's grasp of textures here always extends beyond the stated theme and implies a host of undercurrents and interests, a multi-layered narrative that can unfold later, through a deeper understanding of the context. The longer you spend with such a book, the more powerful and profound it is, as the second wind, connecting to its content, belongs to the reader. His perception.

This book by British writer and art critic John Berger (1926-2017), specially compiled by the author for Russian readers, includes essays from various years devoted to photography, the principles of the post-war art system, as well as some important figures of 20th-century culture, from Mayakovsky to Le Corbusier. The texts, primarily written in the 1960s, contain both a reaction to the events of that time (the death of Che Guevara, the publication of Susan Sontag's book 'On Photography') and more universal works on art theory and history ('The Cubist Moment,' 'The Historical Function of the Museum'), which have not lost their relevance to this day.