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Moments of Vision and Other Essays
A selection of essays by the noted art critic and cultural historian discusses various facets of art, literature, and aesthetics
- GenresNonfictionArt
192 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Kenneth M. Clark
68 books61 followersSir Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (1903 -1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television, presenting a succession of programmes on the arts during the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in the Civilisation series in 1969.
The son of rich parents, Clark was introduced to the arts at an early age. Among his early influences were the writings of John Ruskin, which instilled in him the belief that everyone should have access to great art. After coming under the influence of the connoisseur and dealer Bernard Berenson, Clark was appointed director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford aged twenty-seven, and three years later he was put in charge of Britain's National Gallery. His twelve years there saw the gallery transformed to make it accessible and inviting to a wider public.
During the Second World War, when the collection was moved from London for safe keeping, Clark made the building available for a series of daily concerts which proved a celebrated morale booster during the Blitz.
After the war, and three years as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, Clark surprised many by accepting the chairmanship of the UK's first commercial television network. Once the service had been successfully launched he agreed to write and present programmes about the arts. These established him as a household name in Britain, and he was asked to create the first colour series about the arts, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969 in Britain and in many other countries soon afterwards.
Among many honours, Clark was knighted at the unusually young age of thirty-five, and three decades later was made a life peer shortly before the first transmission of Civilisation. Three decades after his death, Clark was celebrated in an exhibition at Tate Britain in London, prompting a reappraisal of his career by a new generation of critics and historians. Opinions varied about his aesthetic judgment, particularly in attributing paintings to old masters, but his skill as a writer and his enthusiasm for popularising the arts were widely recognised. Both the BBC and the Tate described him in retrospect as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.
The son of rich parents, Clark was introduced to the arts at an early age. Among his early influences were the writings of John Ruskin, which instilled in him the belief that everyone should have access to great art. After coming under the influence of the connoisseur and dealer Bernard Berenson, Clark was appointed director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford aged twenty-seven, and three years later he was put in charge of Britain's National Gallery. His twelve years there saw the gallery transformed to make it accessible and inviting to a wider public.
During the Second World War, when the collection was moved from London for safe keeping, Clark made the building available for a series of daily concerts which proved a celebrated morale booster during the Blitz.
After the war, and three years as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, Clark surprised many by accepting the chairmanship of the UK's first commercial television network. Once the service had been successfully launched he agreed to write and present programmes about the arts. These established him as a household name in Britain, and he was asked to create the first colour series about the arts, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969 in Britain and in many other countries soon afterwards.
Among many honours, Clark was knighted at the unusually young age of thirty-five, and three decades later was made a life peer shortly before the first transmission of Civilisation. Three decades after his death, Clark was celebrated in an exhibition at Tate Britain in London, prompting a reappraisal of his career by a new generation of critics and historians. Opinions varied about his aesthetic judgment, particularly in attributing paintings to old masters, but his skill as a writer and his enthusiasm for popularising the arts were widely recognised. Both the BBC and the Tate described him in retrospect as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 30, 2014
Moments of Vision is a remarkable lecture that was given in 1954 by the man who would later become the presenter of the BBC series Civilisation. His name was Kenneth Clark, and he's largely considered to have been one of Britain's greatest art historians.
While I am woefully under-read when it comes to poetry, and even less adept in talking painting, I found Clark's take on inspiration, well, inspiring. After defining a moment of vision -- that precise instant when the ordinary, the unimpressive, the common thing we witness every day, suddenly jumps out and demands attention -- he observes,
"The visual experiences of original artists control, to a large extent, not only our imaginations but also our direct perceptions... Even those least responsive to art have at the backs of their minds a large untidy store of pictorial images, and three-quarters of what they call beautiful in nature appeals to them because it is the reflection of some forgotten painting."
I've always thought it interesting that we can hike for days, fording rivers and climbing mountains, and the only way to describe the visual mastery of nature when we return consists of words like picturesque. Pictures are supposed to document reality; call a photograph 'natural', however, and it's hardly a compliment that will make the owner blush. Straddle Black Tusk, and all you can say is, "Well that's as pretty as a postcard." Witness Aphrodite herself walk down Granville Street and you'd swear she was the most 'statuesque' woman you've seen in your life.
Clark continues, hitting on something that surely explains our ridiculous obsession with popular culture: "We hunger for the visible definition of our conceepts, and turn avidly (and rather shamefacedly) to the illustrations of a book. Yet we know that the more convincing they are -- Alice in Wonderland or Sherlock Holmes -- the more closely they confine us."
Okay, Clark was talking about fine art, himself riffing academically on the classic quote that 'every poet is a thief'. But is the current infatuation with faux couture any different? We're trapped in an endless cycle of in-jokes and referential material. How is it possible to keep up with the connections? Once you start, there's no stopping.
In one aside from a second-season episode, Family Guy, a brilliant but frenetic animated comedy built atop the before-its-time sitcom All in the Family, spoofs Seinfeld, which paid homage to Woody Allen, who borrowed from Charlie Chaplin, who owed a great deal to vaudeville, which was borne out of pantomime, which often parodies William Shakespeare, who stole from everyone. The viewer is supposed to get all that from a measly seven seconds of a Seinfeld characature that mysteriously appears behind a closet door.
The references on that show fly at the audience, fast and furiously, sometimes subtly but mostly not. Within a ten-second span, you'll need to access the neurons associated with Star Trek, roller derby, Bill Clinton, Andy Kaufman, Michaelangelo, Creutzfeld-Jacobs (mad cow) disease, and the Old Testament. The speed with which a viewer has to switch gears is astounding. Couch potato, my ass. The pop culture connoisseur must be mentally dextrous in ways that past visionaries never dreamed.
It all begs the question: would Leonardo da Vinci have been that brilliant if he had the theme song to Diff'rent Strokes lodged in his head?
While I am woefully under-read when it comes to poetry, and even less adept in talking painting, I found Clark's take on inspiration, well, inspiring. After defining a moment of vision -- that precise instant when the ordinary, the unimpressive, the common thing we witness every day, suddenly jumps out and demands attention -- he observes,
"The visual experiences of original artists control, to a large extent, not only our imaginations but also our direct perceptions... Even those least responsive to art have at the backs of their minds a large untidy store of pictorial images, and three-quarters of what they call beautiful in nature appeals to them because it is the reflection of some forgotten painting."
I've always thought it interesting that we can hike for days, fording rivers and climbing mountains, and the only way to describe the visual mastery of nature when we return consists of words like picturesque. Pictures are supposed to document reality; call a photograph 'natural', however, and it's hardly a compliment that will make the owner blush. Straddle Black Tusk, and all you can say is, "Well that's as pretty as a postcard." Witness Aphrodite herself walk down Granville Street and you'd swear she was the most 'statuesque' woman you've seen in your life.
Clark continues, hitting on something that surely explains our ridiculous obsession with popular culture: "We hunger for the visible definition of our conceepts, and turn avidly (and rather shamefacedly) to the illustrations of a book. Yet we know that the more convincing they are -- Alice in Wonderland or Sherlock Holmes -- the more closely they confine us."
Okay, Clark was talking about fine art, himself riffing academically on the classic quote that 'every poet is a thief'. But is the current infatuation with faux couture any different? We're trapped in an endless cycle of in-jokes and referential material. How is it possible to keep up with the connections? Once you start, there's no stopping.
In one aside from a second-season episode, Family Guy, a brilliant but frenetic animated comedy built atop the before-its-time sitcom All in the Family, spoofs Seinfeld, which paid homage to Woody Allen, who borrowed from Charlie Chaplin, who owed a great deal to vaudeville, which was borne out of pantomime, which often parodies William Shakespeare, who stole from everyone. The viewer is supposed to get all that from a measly seven seconds of a Seinfeld characature that mysteriously appears behind a closet door.
The references on that show fly at the audience, fast and furiously, sometimes subtly but mostly not. Within a ten-second span, you'll need to access the neurons associated with Star Trek, roller derby, Bill Clinton, Andy Kaufman, Michaelangelo, Creutzfeld-Jacobs (mad cow) disease, and the Old Testament. The speed with which a viewer has to switch gears is astounding. Couch potato, my ass. The pop culture connoisseur must be mentally dextrous in ways that past visionaries never dreamed.
It all begs the question: would Leonardo da Vinci have been that brilliant if he had the theme song to Diff'rent Strokes lodged in his head?
January 11, 2015
As supreme as it gets! If you're all about art history these Sir Clark speeches are pure ambrosia.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews