The Success and Failure of Picasso

　　畢卡索是二十世紀公認最具魅力光環的藝術家，他的一生被各種傳奇事跡所環繞。柏格以批評家身分，從畢卡索出生背景、時代氛圍、畫作分析，試圖去再現藝術家的真實處境：畢卡索的成功使他與世隔離，連帶的也使他創作題材匱乏；當周遭友人努力使他快樂時，他卻獨自面對年華老去、創作力衰退的孤絕困境。柏格以悲憫心情和獨到見解寫下畫家一生時，無疑地帶來許多震撼。

　　At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary: breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized—and wholly isolated.

　　In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger—one of this century’s most insightful cultural historians—trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shaped his life and work. Writing with a novelist’s sensuous evocation of character and detail, and drawing on an erudition that embraces history, politics, and art, Berger follows Picasso from his childhood in Malaga to the Blue Period and Cubism, from the creation of Guernica to the painted etchings of his final years. He gives us the full measure of Picasso’s triumphs and unsparing reckoning of their cost—in exile, in loneliness, and in a desolation that drove him, in his last works, into an old man’s furious and desperate frenzy at the beauty of what he could no longer create.

作者簡介

約翰．伯格（John Berger, 1926-2017）
　　
　　文化藝術評論家、作家、詩人、劇作家 等，1926年出生於倫敦。1944至1946年結束服役後，進入倫敦中央藝術學院及切爾西（Chelsea）藝術學院就學。1948至1955年開始教 授繪畫，並展開終其一生的繪畫生涯。他的作品曾在倫敦的?登斯坦畫廊、瑞德弗尼畫廊，以及萊斯特等畫廊展出。
　　
　　1952年伯格開始 替以政治、社會問題、書刊、電影、戲劇等為主題的《新政治家》雜誌撰稿，並很快的以一位深具影響力的馬克思主義的藝術評論家身分竄起。從那時起他陸續出版 了多本藝術評論書籍，包括了有口皆碑的藝術研究作品《觀看的方式》。這本書是以BBC的同名電視影片裡的某些概念為出發點。
　　
　　伯格 的第一部小說發表於1958年，他創造了一種別出心裁的小說體，包括1972年贏得英國布克獎以及布萊克紀念獎的作品G，並與瑞士導演阿蘭．鄧內合作，撰 寫電影劇本《2000年約拿即將25歲》，以及多部電影劇本。他還撰寫了多部舞台劇本。在過去的這二十多年，伯格長期居住在靠近法國邊境阿爾卑斯山的小村 鎮裡，深受山中居民的傳統習俗以及艱困的生活形態所吸引，他也以他們為主題撰寫了多部相關作品。
　　
　　伯格的作品大多具有濃厚的批判色 彩，且表現形式不斷的推陳出新，對社會政治等議題也有其獨特的看法及熱情。他被公認為是英國最具影響力的藝術批評家。相關重要著作還有《永恆的紅色》、 《畢卡索的成功與失敗》、《影像的閱讀》、《藝術與革命》、《另類的出口》、《另一種影像敘事》、《我們在此相遇》、《留住一切親愛的》、《觀看的視界》 等。

　　John Berger (1926-2017) is a novelist, poet, screenwriter and critic. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including To the Wedding, About Looking and G., for which he was awarded the Booker Prize. Among his best-known works are the television series and book, Ways of Seeing. He has received prestigious awards for his writing, including the Petrarca-Preis and a Golden PEN Award.