'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.' John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has. John Berger (1926-2017) was an art critic, painter and novelist, born in Hackney, London. His novel G. (1972) won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize.