A Painter of Our Time (1958)

by John Berger

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From John Berger, the Booker Prize-winning author of G., A Painter of Our Time is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to Berger's great works of art criticism. The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London, an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant one-man show at a fashionable gallery. Where has he gone? Why has he gone? The only clues may lie in the diary, written in Hungarian, that Lavin has left behind in his studio. With uncanny understanding, John Berger has written oneo f hte most convincing portraits of a painter in modern literature, a revelation of art and exile.… (more)

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I read A Painter of Our Time in a disjointed way which did the book no favours. However, it is fair to say it's a hard slog. Beauty and a rather wry humour abound. But it is essential to the story that it contains a lot of Marxist analysis of the place of art in revolution, as well as in the capitalist environs which provide the physical setting. One moment we are following the charmingly amusing story of the butcher who wants Janos to do a nude portrait of his wife. The next we are in this:

Today every painter worthy of the name is his own master, his own pupil and perhaps finally his own debaser, his own mannerist. We each have to decide everything for ourselves. We each have to choose what is inconceivable for us. As artists - and this is the curse that is upon us - we must each visualise our own city, ourself as its centre. It is bitter for me to admit this, I who, as a man, believe in the collective, in the revolutionary class not the revolutionary individual.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/a-painter-of-our-time-by-...

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bringbackbooks | Jun 16, 2020 |

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/portrait-of-the-artist-... (

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kaggsy | Jun 16, 2015 |

The novel was narrated as diary entries of the painter as he unravels the world of colors that he creates, locked away from all. His struggle as he transforms mere blobs of color on canvas into forms and shapes conveying a meaning, a story; adding life to them each day.

In a clash between the Chaos of Modern Art and Romance of Classicism, the protagonist clings to the latter and tries to depict order in the chaotic world today, belonging to the genre (as coined by the author) : "DESPERATE OPTIMISM". (

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Richak | Jul 23, 2010 |

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A Painter of Our Time

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1958

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Epigraph

Life will always be bad enough for the desire for something better not to be extinguisged in men.

Maxim Gorky

Dedication

To Liz, my wife

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From John Berger, the Booker Prize-winning author of G., A Painter of Our Time is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to Berger's great works of art criticism. The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London, an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant one-man show at a fashionable gallery. Where has he gone? Why has he gone? The only clues may lie in the diary, written in Hungarian, that Lavin has left behind in his studio. With uncanny understanding, John Berger has written oneo f hte most convincing portraits of a painter in modern literature, a revelation of art and exile.

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From John Berger, the Booker Prize-winning author of G., A Painter of Our Time is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to Berger’s great works of art criticism. The year is 1956. Soviet tanks are rolling into Budapest. In London, an expatriate Hungarian painter named Janos Lavin has disappeared following a triumphant one-man show at a fashionable gallery. Where has he gone? Why has he gone? The only clues may lie in the diary, written in Hungarian, that Lavin has left behind in his studio. With uncanny understanding, John Berger has written oneo f hte most convincing portraits of a painter in modern literature, a revelation of art and exile. (Penguin Books)

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