Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny and the Role of the Artist

From the author of Ways of Seeing: What is the meaning of Revolutionary art? And who is the revolutionary artist?

In Art and Revolution, John Berger examines the life and work of Ernst Neizvestny, a Russian sculptor whose exclusion from the ranks of officially approved Soviet artists left him laboring in enforced obscurity to realize his monumental and very public vision of art. But Berger's account goes well beyond the specific dilemma of the artist to illuminate the very meaning of revolutionary art. In his struggle against official orthodoxy - including a face-to-face confrontation with Khrushchev himself - Neizvestny was fighting not for a merely personal or aesthetic vision, but for a recognition of the social role of art. His sculptures earn a place in the world by reflecting the courage of a whole people, by commemorating, in an age of mass suffering, the resistance and endurance of millions.

Through this story John Berger explores the relationship of political art and the political artist. Reissued for the first time in a decade, Art and Revolution burnishes Berger's reputation as one of the preeminent thinkers of our age.