The author Ali Smith described Berger last year in an appreciation as "one of the world's most vital corresponders".

"In John Berger’s work love and art and political and historical understanding are always in layered combination," she said.

"There are many other writers and artists who work with this relation, but none with quite the transformatory fusion of his combining, which is a bit like encountering what clarity really is, what the word means, like looking through pure water and seeing things naturally magnified. "