Today I finished reading ‘The Shape of a Pocket’ by John Berger. I intend to re-read it straight away. There is something about Berger’s writing that enables me to catch sight of the edges of ideas. Can I leap frog from the edges of mine to his and back again?
In the final essay in the book, ‘Will It Be a Likeness? (For Juan Munoz)’ he writes about presence, absence and silence in painting, and how likeness is a presence. Berger states that, ‘With a painted or drawn portrait likeness is fundamental; if it’s not there, there’s an absence, a gaping absence.’ I am mulling this over with regard to the likeness of a place or the experience of a place. Something to think about over the weekend!
He writes:
‘A presence is always unexpected. However familiar. You don’t see it coming, it moves in sideways.’
‘A likeness is a gift and remains unmistakeable- even when hidden behind a mask.’
‘I’ll tell you the story of the best likeness ever made.’ Berger goes on to tell the story of Jesus arriving at the place where his friend Lazarus had died and been buried for four days.
‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked.
‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said: ‘See how much he loved him!’
But some of them said: ‘Could not he, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept him from dying?’
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take away the stone,’ he said.
So they took away the stone.
Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth round his face.
Jesus said to him: take off the grave cloths and let him go.’
This was the perfect likeness. And it provoked Caiaphas, the high priest, to lay the plot for the taking of Jesus’s own life.’
What I enjoy about Berger’s work is that I am left with more questions at the end of reading. There is much here I don’t understand and yet somehow his words draw me in and invite me to keep thinking.
So, back to chapter one, ‘Opening a Gate‘.
The Shape of a Pocket, John Berger, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2001
