In this brilliant collection of diverse works essays, short stories, poems, translations which spans a lifetime 's engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of seeing. He challenges readers to rethink their every assumption about the role of creativity in our lives. Paying homage to the writers and thinkers who influenced him, he pushes at the limits of art writing, demonstrating beautifully how his artist 's eye makes him a storyteller, rather than a critic. His expansive perspective takes in artistic movements and individual artists from the Renaissance to the present while never neglecting the social and political context of their creation. Landscapes alongside Portraits completes a tour through the history of art that will be an intellectual benchmark for many years to come.