Civilisation

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CIVILISATION By KENNETH CLARK When Kenneth Clark introduced his magnificent BBC television series Civilisation he emphasised that it was not a history of the arts, but a history of life-giving beliefs and ideas made visible and audible through the médium of art. The continuous praise and enthusiasm with which the series was received proves how successful he has been in making this 'personal' view an exciting and stimulating search into the sources and development of Western Civilisation. For this book the author has revised the scripts of the thirteen television programmes. As he takes us from the fali of the Román Empire to the present day, he does not attempt to give a complete record but concentrates on crucial civilising episodes - from Iona in the ninth century to Francé in the twelfth, from Florence to Urbino, from Germany to Romé, England, Holland and America. Against these historical backgrounds he shows us both the men who gave new energy to civilisation and expanded our... Tovább

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CIVILISATION By KENNETH CLARK When Kenneth Clark introduced his magnificent BBC television series Civilisation he emphasised that it was not a history of the arts, but a history of life-giving beliefs and ideas made visible and audible through the médium of art. The continuous praise and enthusiasm with which the series was received proves how successful he has been in making this 'personal' view an exciting and stimulating search into the sources and development of Western Civilisation. For this book the author has revised the scripts of the thirteen television programmes. As he takes us from the fali of the Román Empire to the present day, he does not attempt to give a complete record but concentrates on crucial civilising episodes - from Iona in the ninth century to Francé in the twelfth, from Florence to Urbino, from Germany to Romé, England, Holland and America. Against these historical backgrounds he shows us both the men who gave new energy to civilisation and expanded our understanding of the world and ourselves, and the works of genius, in architecture, sculpture and painting, in philosophy, poetry and music, in science and in engineering, which they produced and with which the series has been fiiled. In relating works of art to the history of civilisation Kenneth Clark's perception of their quality and the spirit they embody enables him to let us see a painting, a building or a piece of sculpture, whether it is something we know, like Raphael's School of Athens, or something we might not have thought of considering a work of art, like a Brunel bridge, with the excitement of new discovery. The enormous television audience that has been delighted by Kenneth Clark's clarity and lucidity in covering and interpreting so wide a span of time, so versatile a rangé of ideas and their manifestations, will be in no doubt at all about the value and importance of this book. On the froht of the jacket is a detail from Raphael's fresco in the Vatican, known as the School of Athens. It shows Euclid (in fact a portrait of the architect Bramante) proving a geometrical theorem to a group of graceful young men, who are enraptured at the logic and clarity of his demonstration. On the back of thejacket is a later result of drawing diagrams - the old Forth Bridge. Vissza