Over to You: Letters Between a Father and Son

by John Berger, Yves Berger Narrated by Peter Noble, Nicholas Guy Smith

Overview

Compelling and intimate, this collection of never-before-seen letters between the celebrated art critic and essayist, John Berger and his son Yves, an artist, is a moving look at their musings on art, memory, life, death, and beyond.

Written between 2015-16, with color images of well-known old masters and contemporary art as well as some of the Bergers' own drawings and watercolors, Over to You is an informal back and forth not unlike the ping-pong games father and son used to play in the barn of their house. It begins when John-who is in a Parisian suburb-sends Yves-who is in Haute Savoie-an envelope of reproductions of art that have moved him. And so they begin to reveal their thoughts looking at a Goya, Watteau, Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Durer, Caravaggio, Manet, and Euan Uglow, among many others. But the art is just a way to summon shared emotions and memories, as well as deepen their understanding of the world and its mysteries.

John at 89 is the more formal teacher, Yves at 39 comes across as the younger, philosophical artist. There are John's thoughts on the use of color, light and space in, say, a Dürer, or a Beckmann to the question of “staying fully alive”; or Yves noting how much in life exceeds our understanding, the gap between our consciousness and our feeling, between the said and the unsaid. “That's the zone where I would like us to meet. Are you coming?” He asks his father. “I may need other eyes to confirm what is really there. Like your eyes always did.” This is an exceptional and moving tribute to a relationship between a father and son, and between two artists, as well as a thought provoking look at questions we all have about work, time, the universe, life and death.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of artworks referenced throughout.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In these agonising times . . . [Over to You] is a quiet antidote to despair. . . . Even a single page brings the sanity of listening, looking, and a compassion that asks rather than answers. The love between father and son is a form of shelter in itself.”
—The Guardian

“Moving and enlightening. . . . John and Yves sail blithely past proprieties and orthodoxies. . . . ‘Over to you’ was what the Bergers would yell at each other during their table tennis games, and it is a delight to see a similarly intense repartee at work in their letters.”
—The Art Newspaper

"Memorable. . . . Painting—and writing about painting—become a celebration of the vitally concrete."
—The Millions

“Yves [Berger] invites readers into an intimate world of father and son. . . . Whimsical, playful, and ruminative—a testament to the authors’ love of art and each other.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“The back-and-forth resonates with mutual affection between parent and child as the two mull over unsolvable issues.”
—ArtFuse

Kirkus Reviews

2024-06-11
A father and son wax euphoric about art.

This slight collection of illustrated, wide-ranging letters between noted art critic John Berger (1926-2017) and his painter and poet son, Yves, invites readers into an intimate world of father and son. Yves writes they made “drawings with the same joy and hope we felt when playing ping-pong.” Initiated by John with a response by Yves, the correspondence bounces back and forth in a reflective, free-flowing manner. John references works by Rogier van der Weyden, Van Gogh, and Goya, among many others, reflecting on their similar spatial perspectives that bring observers directly into the work. Yves responds with a print by Chaïm Soutine, which “offers itself like an open book too.” That observation makes John think of Watteau’s “players and clowns,” while Yves thinks of Max Beckmann, his faith, and his woman wearing a carnival mask. John then brings up Kokoschka, for whom “light is a parting touch” and whose “gaze was like of a migrant bird about to leave.” Yves writes about Giacometti and Schjerfbeck’s self-portraits, closing with a photo of “our beloved Käthe Kollwitz next to one of her self-portraits,” and John compares and contrasts landscapes by Poussin and Zhu Da, especially how each questions the “notion of eternity.” John also invokes the “mystery that art strives to present to us,” while Yves affectionately writes about his father addressing the masters as comrades. Each author reflects on their processes when making art, as well as how to emotionally interpret them. John wonders if painting is the “recuperation of the invisible. Am I that far out?” Yves: “No, Papa, you’re not far out.” The book closes with a number of their drawings, including one Yves drew of his father when he was 10.

Whimsical, playful, and ruminative—a testament to the authors’ love of art and each other.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191476131
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/12/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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