‘“We do not live apart”: John Berger and the Radical Politics of Rural Life’

Abstract

Berger’s essays on the 19th-century artists Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet and Ferdinand Cheval and his discussion of primitivism, class, labour, materiality and landscape are put in dialogue with important 21st-century ecocritical texts. Arguing for his significant contribution to 19th-century social history, this essay also draws attention to his ecological emphasis on the always-interconnected nature of human and nonhuman animals and rural environments and to artistic political practices of making ecological relationships visible.

Keywords

• John Berger
• material ecocriticism
• materiality
• Jean-François Millet
• Gustave Courbet
• Ferdinand Cheval