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Civilisation

Kenneth Clark

4.26 · Rating details · 1,453 ratings · 107 reviews

Art

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Paperback, 360 pages

Published 1980 by BBC Books / John Murray (first published 1969)

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May 28, 2013 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, art

I started watching this and then bought the book. This is sumptuous. It was made in 1969 by the BBC to encourage people to buy colour television sets, I believe. As an introduction to the arts it is quite conservative. But it gives an interesting overview of the history of art and some notion of the main periods. What he calls civilisation covers a remarkably slight and slender portion of human civilisation, you know, apart from the occasional bridge, it really seems to amount to art. Nothing wr I started watching this and then bought the book. This is sumptuous. It was made in 1969 by the BBC to encourage people to buy colour television sets, I believe. As an introduction to the arts it is quite conservative. But it gives an interesting overview of the history of art and some notion of the main periods. What he calls civilisation covers a remarkably slight and slender portion of human civilisation, you know, apart from the occasional bridge, it really seems to amount to art. Nothing wrong with this, but civilisation does seem to be somewhat more. Also, this is very much the civilisation of Western Europe after the dark ages. This probably could have done with a better name.

There is a lovely episode in the middle that focuses on music – mostly Bach – while panning across Baroque architecture. After a while it all gets to be too much and you can’t really take it in anymore, but you do get the impression that if there was a God he really would be pretty impressed with that period all-round.

After the churches and palaces and lavish paintings and public squares with marble god-knows-what, the final episode pans drearily across the New York skyline prior to the World Trade Centre being built, but still amongst endlessly the same skyscrapers. It is a strikingly sad scene. He mumbles something about opulence amongst squalor, but what really strikes you is how horribly dull the buildings are. We are richer than ever before, and yet after 12 episodes of architecture that would make you weep, paintings that cannot but leave you dazed and spinning, it is hard to look at ‘the best of the modern world’ and not think, “Is this really the best we can do?”

I guess painting church ceilings for twenty-years wasn’t really efficient – and we all know how terribly important it is to be efficient.

I think this could well have been better if it was purely a history of art and therefore sought to present that history by explaining more of what the artists where seeking to do and why. For example, what where the technological and scientific prerequisites that made point perspective painting possible? How did such painting change the way we saw space? What is the relationship between symbolic representation and naturalistic representation and to what extent are these contradictory? How did the invention of oil paints or access to various pigments affect what and how things were painted? How did the black-death impact on the history art and literature – beyond say Petrarch and Laura?

Let me give you a better example. I’m reading his The Nude at the moment – or rather, I was reading it and have been distracted with other things. In it he says that architecture – particularly Classical architecture – is premised on the same proportions as the human body. The columns are the legs, the ceiling is the shoulders. But, as much as I like this idea, he never explains it in a way I can really understand. And he says the same is true of Gothic architecture, but this left me even more confused. I think I would need a diagram – I think I would need numbers. Anyway, I certainly need more – he tantalizes, where he should explain. I would love to see a program that really did relate the arts – music, painting, sculpture, crafts and so on – from each period showing the common features of each art form and the striking differences. You know, in something like the way Foucault does with economics, biology and linguistics in The Order of Things. That is, a history of art that expresses what the artists were seeking to say, and seeking to show in their art. A history of art as if it was done by that other BBC presenter of personal views – James Burke – with his Connections or The Day the Universe Changed - perhaps my two all-time favourite documentaries.

But this was meant as a very expensive chocolate box, or jewellery box and it is certainly that – like I said, it is sumptuous. I wonder why we don’t make more documentaries like this anymore? Are people really not interested?

...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: highly-recommended-favorites, artsy-fartsy

I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room

I must admit immediately that I have never read nor even laid eyes on this book. I’m sure it’s lovely. This review is, rather, about the television series, which I’d wager is twice as lovely.

Civilisation is the best documentary I’ve ever seen. Kenneth Clark takes his viewer from the Dark Ages, through romanesque, gothic, the Renaissance, the Reformation, baroque, rococo, neoclassicism, impressionism, through the industrial revolution and the two World Wars, all the way up to when the program was made in the late 1960s. This is a remarkable amount of ground to cover for a show with 13 episodes, each 50 minutes long.

Not only chronologically, but in subject matter, this documentary casts a wide net. Although the show’s primary emphasis is on architecture and art, Clark also dips into literature, poetry, music, engineering, politics, and wider social problems like inequality, poverty, oppression, and war. Of course, for lack of time Clark cannot delve too deeply into any one of these subjects; but because the presentation is so skillful and economical, and the selection of material so tasteful, the viewer is nevertheless satisfied at the end of every episode.

The documentary generally shifts between shots of Clark facing the camera, talking to the viewer, and extended, panoramic shots of churches, monuments, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mountains, while beautiful music plays in the background. Clark himself chose the musical accompaniments to these visuals, and they are uniformly splendid (and this is one reason why I recommend the documentary over the book). More than perhaps anything I’ve seen on a screen, this series is rich, lavish, sumptuous. As the camera pans over the altarpiece of a church, while Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion plays in the background, it’s so lush and gorgeous that it almost gives you a stomach ache.

Aside from these visuals and music, the main attraction of the series is Clark himself. He comes across as refined, cosmopolitan—almost a freak of erudition. But for all that, he is charming and witty, if ultimately a bit cold. One of the strongest impressions I got was that Clark was a man from another time. He looks out of place as he walks through the modern streets, crowded with cars and buzzing with urban life. He has many misgivings about the modern world: he is anti-Marxist, anti-modern art, and certainly didn’t understand the student protests and hippie culture flourishing at the time. In his own words, he was a “stick in the mud,” and I think felt alienated from his time because of his intense appreciation, even worship, of Western art.

This brings me to some of this program’s shortcomings. Most of these are due to the time in which it was made. This is most apparent in the first episode, “The Skin of Our Teeth,” wherein he argues that civilization almost disappeared during the Dark Ages, and comes close to crediting Charlemagne as the savior of all subsequent culture. This requires that he completely discredit both Byzantine and Muslim culture (not to mention Chinese), both of which were doing just fine. He repeats the tired stereotype about Byzantium being a fossilized culture and treats the Muslims as simple destroyers. Later on in the series, he has some uncharitable things to say about the Germans, which I think was a product of growing up during the World War.

A more serious flaw might be that the series bites off more than it can chew. The questions Clark poses to answer are vast. What is civilization? What makes it thrive? What makes it fall apart? Deep questions, but his answers are by comparison shallow. Civilization requires confidence in the future; they cannot be built on fear. Civilization requires rebirth, the constant search for new styles and ideas; but it also requires continuity and tradition, a respect for the past. Civilization is pushed forward by men of genius (and in this series, they’re all men), who enlarge our faculties with their godlike creative powers; men like Michelangelo, Dante, Beethoven, men who are timeless and yet who forever alter the face of culture.

These are interesting answers, but they seem rather superficial to me. They describe, rather than explain, civilization. But of course, this is a documentary, not a monograph. And although Clark asks and tries to answer many questions, I think his primary goal was simply to inspire a sense of the worth, the preciousness, the grandeur of the accomplishments of European civilization. He wants to remind his viewers that our culture is fragile, and that we owe to it not only beautiful paintings and poetry, but also our very ability to see and appreciate the beauty in certain ways, to think about ideas in a certain light, to live not only a happy but a full and rich life.

Maybe this seems pinched and old-fashioned nowadays. Still, I can’t help thinking of all the times that a friend, a fellow student, or even a teacher has made a blanket statement about “Western culture,” “Enlightenment ideas,” “scientific materialism,” or some such thing, while seeming to understand none of it. (I've probably done this myself, too.) I’ve been in classes—serious, graduate-level classes—where, amid condemnations of “Western” ideas and gratuitous namedropping of Western philosophers, I realized that I was the only person there, professor included, who actually read some of these authors. I’m not making this up.

I suppose this is just a callow intellectual fashion, and it will eventually pass away. And I also suppose that this might be slightly preferable to the idiotic self-glorification of “European man” that prevailed in earlier times. At present, however, this program is a wonderful corrective to our bad habits of thought. It’s an education, a social critique, and a joy. I hope you get a chance to watch it. ...more

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Nov 20, 2019 John Hatley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is an excellent, beautifully illustrated book based on the fascinating BBC television series that was broadcast in the first half of 1969. If it is still in print or available as an antiquarian book, I can recommend it highly to anyone who likes post-Roman empire European history, art, or any well-written non-fiction literature.

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Apr 28, 2019 Sense Of History rated it liked it

Shelves: global-history, history-of-the-arts, cultural-history

This book is 50 years old, and only the paper version of a BBC-TV-series. As a young man I saw this series and was very impressed by the erudition of Clark and his strong views. So many years later, these views obviously are very outdated; the narrow Western focus today would be completely out of the question; moreover, Clark did not venture into the twentieth century art, though we do have the impression that he has a not so flattering opinion about it. Some of his remarks, we would be ashamed ...more

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Dec 11, 2017 Anton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my-physical-library, civilization-and-history

This weekend I have indulged myself with a visit to Hatchard's Piccadilly, London's oldest bookstore. For those who haven't been there yet - I strongly recommend you do next time you are in the city! It is a fabulous place. A bookstore as the bookstores were meant to be. Full of charm, treasures to be found and quirky intelligent staff. Perhaps it is not where one goes bargain-hunting, but their selection is superb. Most of the new releases available 'signed by the author' and they are also offe ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 An Idler rated it really liked it

Kenneth Clark was a mixed bag. On the one hand he believed in many sensible things: that society needs institutions, order is better than chaos, creation is better than destruction, and in sympathy over ideology, knowledge over ignorance, gentleness over violence, and forgiveness over vendetta. He believed in a need to learn from history. He believed in a basic lack of change in human nature over millennia.

These are the observations of a sober and honest man.

He also correctly predicted from what Kenneth Clark was a mixed bag. On the one hand he believed in many sensible things: that society needs institutions, order is better than chaos, creation is better than destruction, and in sympathy over ideology, knowledge over ignorance, gentleness over violence, and forgiveness over vendetta. He believed in a need to learn from history. He believed in a basic lack of change in human nature over millennia.

These are the observations of a sober and honest man.

He also correctly predicted from what quarter the coming destruction would come. Clark feared Western cynicism and disillusionment - what Roger Scruton has called the "culture of repudiation". We are seeing the throes of that force today.

What Clark missed was the solution. He thought it lay in the renewal of the Center, as if society was being pulled apart by two extreme sides: one with too many convictions, the other with none. The reality is that the Foundation is giving way from beneath Western civilization, as he documents here in a largely neutral tone - as if the imprisonment of mankind in the cage of materialism had no relation to the explosion of barbarities in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Kenneth Clark was a fatherly old humanist with an appreciation of the Divine. He was convinced that there was something more to reality than materialism. He followed the scent of the Imago Dei in man, not to orthodoxy but to an appreciation of the existence of God and the need for society to account for the full range of the human condition - sinful and spiritual.

As such he's well worth reading. You can learn a lot, as long as you're on your guard to the subtle deceptions of his humanism. (The same for Scruton, and others.) Clark observes much and appreciates much and says many wise things, but his attempt to integrate all this data in humanity instead of God is a grave error.

With your philosophical guard up, the 'Civilisation' book and thirteen-part BBC series (watch it on YouTube) are fantastic. Clark is incredibly charismatic with his dry humor, unflappable demeanor, and twinkling eyes. His selection of music, poetry, architecture, and painting are cohesive. His knowledge is extensive. He doesn't talk down to you, either. Yes, he repeats a few now-exploded ideas that were common to the time - about the Dark Ages, the supposed oppression of Victorian industrial England, etc - so perhaps a bit of knowledge going in would be good to have. But these are trifling.

I recommend the BBC show for the full effect. There are sections absolutely brimming with the exhilaration of cultural confidence. It will make you proud of the West and human achievement like never before - delirious with the inexpressible grandeur of imperial architecture and individual creative expression. You will reel under the fusion of genius with genius, beauty with beauty, sublimity with sublimity.

And that is a poison, unless cut with the Waters of Life. ...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Monica rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-and-culture, european-history

About two-thirds of the way through, Clark makes a statement that to me sums up the whole point of the narrative: "[A]lthough one may use works of art to illustrate the history of civilization, one must not pretend that social conditions produce works of art or inevitably influence their form." This is exactly what Clark does: the progress of art is discussed in parallel with the progress in civilization, of which art is simultaneously herald, inspirator, and mirror. At times I feel that Clark d ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Katie Bayford rated it it was amazing

One of the most sublime books I have ever had the fortune of reading. I must revisit and revisit in the years to come.

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Dec 30, 2011 Brian Gatz rated it really liked it

God, if this were newer...Here's an incredible survey of what happened in art, philosophy, and (most importantly) architecture from ~1000-1915. It's not entirely optimistic, but looks up enough. Paths, rights, and wrongs don't much play into it. We're creating piles of architecture, sweet paintings, effortless sculpture--or we're graceful in proportion, famed in ideas, moderate in wealth, and subtle in human appreciation. If there's a pattern, it's cyclical, short, and ecstatic. Some of the best ...more

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Apr 16, 2015 Marc rated it liked it

Shelves: art

Outdated of course now, but charming because of his erudition. I saw the BBC-series more than 40 years ago. More on my Sense-of-history-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... ...more

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Sep 14, 2020 booklady marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Watched the series produced from this book more times than I can remember. It is narrated by the author and mesmerizing. Need to get the book (which has been on my shelf for a number of years) down and read it!

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Sep 11, 2016 Carol Tensen rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

I picked this up at a thrift shop because I didn't see the BBC series back in the late sixties. I was always attracted to the image of Charlemagne on the cover. This being a series of essays rather than a linear history of art and civilization, Clark leads us through the development of Western Europe through some interesting generalizations: that craft (text illumination, decoration, reliquaries) led to art and architecture during the middle ages; that the age of reason eventually led to a "Wors ...more

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Jun 21, 2012 John Sutherland rated it really liked it

This book is a fitting companion to the excellent videos of the same name. Kenneth Clark was one of those delightful english gentlemen with an impeccable education, and who use english properly and to whom it is a pleasure to listen, and to watch (other than for seing his english dentistry). It traces the precarious survival of christian civilization in the last thousand or so years, through the accomplishments of that time that--unlike history--cannot easily lie: its Art; its Books; and its Arc ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Dat rated it it was amazing

A splendid walk through the museum of Western civilisation, covering primarily its architecture and its paintings since the Dark Ages, but also touching on music and literature, with a highly educated and worldly tour guide. Kenneth Clark holds up art as a mirror to Western society, a reflection of its concerns, ideas and most intense feelings. Although the author is careful to note that art does not necessarily imitate life (perhaps, the opposite is true), his narrative draws clear links from g ...more

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Jun 01, 2012 Sasha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-books

Verbatim of classic TV series where Kenneth Clark discussed civilization of Western Europe from collapse of Roman Europe to recent times.
I am not familiar with original TV program so for me this was the first introduction with Clark and I loved it,his way with words is very classy and he surely and swiftly moves from one subject to another,in fact there were so many interesting side-stories that I started to note everything down for future research,absolutely loved his style and often would re-r Verbatim of classic TV series where Kenneth Clark discussed civilization of Western Europe from collapse of Roman Europe to recent times.
I am not familiar with original TV program so for me this was the first introduction with Clark and I loved it,his way with words is very classy and he surely and swiftly moves from one subject to another,in fact there were so many interesting side-stories that I started to note everything down for future research,absolutely loved his style and often would re-read certain pages because this was educational and stylish at the same time. Sure,we can read between the lines and understand these opinions come from elderly gentleman of certain background (for example,women are not mentioned at all) but once this was understood,reader have lot to enjoy in here.

Every chapter covers some important innovation,be it in architecture,music,art or simply in change of thinking - Clark mentions Dante,Holbein,Mozart and Voltaire illustrating his stories with funny little anecdotes (H.G.Wells wouldn't dare to drive a car in France,because the temptation to run over a priest would be too strong for him) and there are literary thousands of informations that reader can treasure and savour later.

Some are dead-set against edition without illustrations,well I happened to buy the only available here and it was paperback with not a single illustration and wouldn't you know,it did not made any difference (except that is probably lighter to carry around on my travels than hardback,illustrated version) for me as I love READING,not just looking at pictures. I can read about any subject and find the illustration myself if I want to,we have internet now so everything is available. It reminds me of Alice's question of what's the point of book without pictures,well I am life-long passionate reader and for me the language and the style of the writer is more important than pictures.
This is beautiful,little book that covers centuries of innovations and I absolutely love it. ...more

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Sep 19, 2016 Supertramp rated it it was amazing

From Aurelius to Aristotle and from Michelangelo to Byron, the presenter Kenneth Clark had an exquisite taste that any man would die for. If I can travel back in time, I would definitely want his company all day long and listen to his observations and findings of Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance. And yes, I love his tweeds!

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May 21, 2013 Pieter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kunst

Although both the book dates back to 1969, I enjoyed the reading very much. To be honest, I read the book and watched the related DVD-series simultaneously. The DVD offers the opportunity to see also the buildings, pieces of art, paintings to which Sir Kenneth Clark refers. The book covers a history of civilisation covering more than a millenium of European history. Focus is rather on the Low Countries, Italy, Germany, France and the Isles. Little or no attention to Spain and Eastern/ Middle Eur ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 James rated it it was amazing

I'm not familiar with the related TV show, but this book is nothing like a television production. It is an interesting and subjective look at how art, architecture and literature shaped Western civilisation. I'm sure Clark would have added other parts of the world as well, but he himself admits int he book that he doesn't know enough about other civilisations to make such comments (though he does tip his hat to those civilisations when he can).

The book starts at around the middle of the first ce ...more

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Dec 04, 2017 Carlos rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, music-art

Although this book went in a different direction from what I expected, I still found it thought-provoking and worthwhile to read. Clark seeks to give the reader his take on the development of European society of the last thousand years through the movements in its architecture and art. He starts with the collapsed of the Roman Empire and follows the different artistic movements that arose during the “barbarian” invasions as they morphed from imitating the Roman style to developing their own. He ...more

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Oct 06, 2018 Mike rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Civilisation, based upon a TV series of the same name, is a detailed exploration of the history of Western art and philosophy by historian Kenneth Clark. Clark takes the reader on a journey through European history, illustrating the zeitgeist of each epoch through the most representative pieces of architecture, paintings, sculptures, and literature. For the most part his commentary is very interesting, but one difficulty I had is that as somebody who has a very limited understanding of the world ...more

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May 15, 2009 Erik Graff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: art

Kenneth Clark was an historian of art who wrote and narrated the first color BBC documentary, Civilisation, and produced a lavishly illustrated book along the same lines. The film was shown at Grinnell College during my freshman year. Thereafter I picked up the book.

Both book and documentary are not so much histories of art as they are histories of (primarily western) civilization earmarked to great and illustrative works of art.

Grinnell College is not the place to go if one enjoys the spendors ...more

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Dec 23, 2010 Alins rated it it was amazing

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Apr 22, 2018 Jeff Howells rated it really liked it · review of another edition

As the updated series is currently on TV, this is a good time to read the book that accompanied Kenneth Clarke’s original documentary ‘Civilisation’ back in 1969. I watched it several years ago and loved it. The book is essentially Clarke’s narrative stripped of all the luscious visuals and music.
It’s interesting to compare Clarke’s version with this year’s modern updating. Clarke’s was essentially a chronological wander through the history of Western art & architecture. The programmes of Schama ...more

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Nov 01, 2009 Bettie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, medieval5c-16c, art-forms, nonfiction, one-penny-wonder, ancient-history, teh-brillianz, published-1969

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Mar 03, 2014 Whoknew? rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Just don't ask Sir Kenneth about the Spanish....funny how he could present an overview of European art without so much as a word about them. Hmmmm. ...more

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Aug 25, 2019 Fraser Kinnear rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: greece, history, rome, art

I bought this, along with some Seamus Heaney poetry, at Hatchards on Picadilly in London last Christmas. The book itself is fine, but what makes this a truly great experience is reading it alongside the 1969 BBC miniseries (easy to find on YoutTube) that it is mostly a transcript for.

Clark’s personality as a quirky old toff shines through on the first pages (e.g., “Fine words: and fine words butter no parsnips”), but it’s watching him stand in front of dusty forgotten corners of crumbling churc I bought this, along with some Seamus Heaney poetry, at Hatchards on Picadilly in London last Christmas. The book itself is fine, but what makes this a truly great experience is reading it alongside the 1969 BBC miniseries (easy to find on YoutTube) that it is mostly a transcript for.

Clark’s personality as a quirky old toff shines through on the first pages (e.g., “Fine words: and fine words butter no parsnips”), but it’s watching him stand in front of dusty forgotten corners of crumbling churches in resplendent tweed suits, pattering on about a church architect whose name you’re going to immediately forget, which gives you full Oxbridge Don lecture experience. The show is an entirely different experience for identical content to the book. This is a ten-part lecture series on the appreciation of Western art, and one can only write so much about Chartres Cathedral on the page to really appreciate it. However, the time constraints of a primetime TV show (even one catering to an audience so patient as 1960’s BBC watchers, few of whom even had the color TVs necessary to pick up the signal for the broadcast) mean that there is interesting content on the page that Clark never got to on screen. So the Chartres lecture runs on for pages past where the show had to transition.

That’s why combining the two is so much fun. And their pairing speaks to an even deeper truth about art appreciation – that mediums are incredibly difficult to mix, or that different mediums are best for catering to different emotions. This point, while never really made directly, is a clear lesson from a point Clarke makes near the end of the Baroque / Rococo chapter, where Clark muses over the value of opera:

What on earth has given opera its prestige in western civilization – a prestige that has outlasted so many different fashions and ways of thought? Why are people prepared to sit silently for three hours hastening to a performance of which they do not understand a word and of which they very seldom know the plot? Why do quite small towns all over Germany and Italy still devote a large portion of their budgets to this irrational entertainment? Partly, of course, because it is a display of skill, like a football match. But chiefly, I think, because it is irrational. ‘What is too silly to be said may be sung’ – well, yes; but what is too subtle to be said, or too deeply felt, or too revealing, or too mysterious – these things can also be sung and only be sung.

I love books like these which serve as “surveys” of the world. Or, at least, I seem to read a lot of them. I don’t “learn” so much as I do piece new disparate strands together, or enjoy lovely quotes or references. One happy discovery was when I realized that a friend of mine only dates girls who look like the women Botticelli painted. ...more

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Aug 06, 2019 Randy Wilson added it

Kenneth Clark narrated a 13 part series for the BBC called Civilization in 1969 which was widely praised but fifty years on feels awfully white, male and privileged. Yet the knee-jerk PC reaction to dismiss his effort misses his point. Clark wasn’t so interested in claiming the white, male and privileged supremacy of civilization but to look at what made human efforts at culture, art and literature worthy of examination. Had someone presented him with a series focused on the achievement of wo Kenneth Clark narrated a 13 part series for the BBC called Civilization in 1969 which was widely praised but fifty years on feels awfully white, male and privileged. Yet the knee-jerk PC reaction to dismiss his effort misses his point. Clark wasn’t so interested in claiming the white, male and privileged supremacy of civilization but to look at what made human efforts at culture, art and literature worthy of examination. Had someone presented him with a series focused on the achievement of women, he wouldn’t have spent time claiming males had done better but in examining the inner workings of the effort; does this effort hold together and is there something enduring in it.

The book based on the series is literally the text of the show but despite that reads beautifully and I benefited from getting to slow down and savor his efforts. His achievement is considerable. It is one thing to list out the greatest hits of a millennium and it is quite another to shape an argument that contains so much passion and perspective. Clark balances the quirky genius of the lone individual who often leads the way at much personal cost against the need for communal glue to hold together greatness and not let it slip away between the down times.

Civilization needs to create a widely shared prosperity at its core but if it doesn’t do more it will not sustain itself. It needs to also give license to individuals to soar above us mortals and give us the stuff of transcendence and monumentality. There is little moral judgement in Clark’s work. Yes he verbalizes human values he holds dear but he doesn’t expect them to be shared by all the great men he points to as the soaring geniuses of his book. He died thirty five years ago and I don’t think the peril of climate change, our failure to measure up to the challenge nor the proto-fascism of our current politics would surprise him in least. He would still seek out those individuals who soldiered on in the name of the arts and claim that civilization could carry on if they were given half a chance. ...more

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May 26, 2018 Lysergius rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

A companion volume to the Television series, this short work reviews western civilisation in terms of art and artefacts rather than political or economic forces. Sadly it is unillustrated, so one really has to refer to the television series to complete the picture, and obtain the visual references. That being said Clark does to confine himself to the visual arts but address music and the written arts as well.

This is a truly well written and thoroughly entertaining work by a man who had the where ...more

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Jul 13, 2019 Luis Colorado Nates rated it really liked it

I was hoping to recapture in this book the memories from the landmark TV series narrated by Kenneth Clark. Regrettably, the quality of the illustrations is low, which is a big disappointment. Besides the pictures, the text seems, for the most part, to be an abridged version of the series script. For all of that, I take off a star.

Nonetheless, Mr. Clark's brilliant narrative and humane insights are still there. The subtle humor, the enthrallment, and the dissappointment are all there. Despite my ...more

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Jan 03, 2021 Kim Sasso rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, rejected

Ha Ha! In 1999 I wrote about this book: "Chapter 1 and I am already offended! Clark is so dated! What small mind wrote,about, "the negro imagination," that created the African mask, or about "the late antique world, full of meaninless rituals, mystery religious, that destroyed self-confidence." *** I went on to discover "stuff I liked," and I made a few notes. but I clearly did not complete this book. I don't think I ever even saw the companion television show. I know Clark remains a big name in ...more

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About Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark

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There is more than one author with this name

Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation. In 1969, he achieved an international popular presence as the writer, producer, and presenter of the BBC Television series, Civilisation.

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Quotes from Civilisation

“I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history.” — 39 likes

“At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.” — 33 likes

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