CIVILISATION

Since last weekend we've been watching Kenneth Clark's 1969 "personal view" documentary series CIVILISATION, which I first saw when I was a kid.  It's fascinating stuff.

Kenneth Clark came from a wealthy Scottish family that made its fortune manufacturing thread, and became director of the National Gallery when barely 30. (One of his sons became a Conservative MP and is known for his rakish diary; the other became a filmmaker and his encounter with Marilyn Monroe became the movie MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.)  I find that Anglicized Scots like him have a way of becoming more English than the English. (Other examples:  Tony Blair, Colin Firth, the Queen Mother...)

This series is a history of Western civilization as seen through its art.  That means mostly visual arts like painting, sculpture and architecture, though there's also some time for theatre, essays and music.  One thing that impresses me is the way cultures of the West have often "failed upward," as in the Renaissance happening so soon after the Black Death. (Oddly, Clark skipped over the Black Death, as well as Spanish culture so far.)

Clark was a pedant of the "old school": you don't see people like him on TV these days.  He narrates the series with a restrained diffidence I found curious in childhood, leavened with some dry wit.  He's full of observations like that atonement has done as much for art as megalomania and self-glorification.