It was sold as a love story. It was actually an argument about America — about politics, memory, and the terrible cost of choosing comfort over conviction. By Bergotte There is a moment near the end of The Way We Were, Sydney Pollack’s 1973 film, that has lodged itself in the cultural memory with aContinue reading “What We Lose When We Love: The Way We Were and the Myth of the Perfect Compromise”
Category Archives: Aesthetics
Chapter 16: My Babe
The boy tells me about his summer job, saying it’s been fun and the folks are real nice. I listen, and imagine what it must be like to have a manual-labouring job like that. “You gotta let me do it soon,” he says, lying back in my room after we’ve laughed ourselves breathless about something.Continue reading “Chapter 16: My Babe”
The Scrawl of the Gods: Cy Twombly and the Art of Forgetting
He made paintings that looked like vandalism, drawings that resembled the work of a distracted child, and sculptures that seemed to be falling apart. He also changed the course of Western art. By Bergotte There is a canvas in the Menil Collection in Houston, twelve feet wide, that appears, at first glance, to have beenContinue reading “The Scrawl of the Gods: Cy Twombly and the Art of Forgetting”
Chapter 15: Home Is Where the Heart Is
It’s the summer when I turn sixteen.I haven’t been home since Christmas, and I haven’t seen very much of the boy since last summer’s tiff. We made up before I went back to school, he accepted my apology and the letter; we even went back to watching movies in the screening room, and to holdingContinue reading “Chapter 15: Home Is Where the Heart Is”
The Architecture of Silence: John Pawson and the Art of Less
He has built monasteries, fashion temples, and homes for the hyper-wealthy. But John Pawson’s real subject has always been the same: what happens when you take everything away. By Bergotte There is a room in the Czech countryside, an hour south of Prague, that has no decoration whatsoever. Its walls are limestone. Its floor isContinue reading “The Architecture of Silence: John Pawson and the Art of Less”
Chapter 14: The Lady is a Tramp
Everyone says I look great, that I have become more sophisticated and cool, that my new fashionable hair-do and subtle makeup suit me – that I look like a real lady now – not just plain old English as I did before.Mabel especially thinks it’s wild how much I have changed. “Let’s go shopping,” sheContinue reading “Chapter 14: The Lady is a Tramp”
The Brutality of Fact: David Sylvester and the Vocation of Looking
The greatest British art critic of the twentieth century never wrote a book he was satisfied with. What he left behind instead was something rarer — a model of attention so exacting it changed what art could ask of its audience. By Bergotte There is a way of sitting in front of a painting thatContinue reading “The Brutality of Fact: David Sylvester and the Vocation of Looking”
Chapter 13: Follow That Dream
“Where do you usually summer?” asks a man in his early thirties. He has a mess of sandy hair and a broad grin and has stopped to chat on the beach. He introduces himself to me as Jack. He looks familiar, though I can’t place him. I hesitate, half amused, half at a loss. IContinue reading “Chapter 13: Follow That Dream “
Ways of Being Seen: John Berger and the Art of Paying Attention
Eight years after his death, the critic, novelist, and storyteller who changed how we look at art remains the most generous — and the most radical — writer England ever produced. By Bergotte There is a moment in the first episode of Ways of Seeing — the 1972 BBC television series that made John Berger,Continue reading “Ways of Being Seen: John Berger and the Art of Paying Attention”
Chapter 12: Celluloid Heroes
I’m out in New York City with Cary Grant, who confides that he’s lonely. I’ve come to the city with Tilly, though her parents have whisked her and her siblings away to a christening. Mr Grant, in town on movie-star business, has offered to take me out for dinner. We spend the afternoon strolling throughContinue reading “Chapter 12: Celluloid Heroes”
My World of Interiors 