Damn those Computers (and other things)!

At the end of The Falacies of Hope Kenneth Clark argues that we should be inspired to "defy all those forces that threaten to impair our humanity: lies, tanks, tear gas, ideologies, opinion polls, mechanisation, planners, computers - the whole lot." I bet he would include blogs if he had written it today!

Civilisation 10: The Smile of Reason: 5

  

Here Clark discusses the ideals of the Enlightenment and the way they had influenced the creation of the Great Republic.

Civilisation 10: The Smile of Reason: 4

In this part of "The Smile of Reason" Clarke returns the France, to boarders of Switzerland and to the subject of Voltaire. The 18th Century was "the heir to Renaissance humanism" (Clark, 1969 p.261). We do see in the late 18th Century the rise of revolutionary thought.

We then move to America where the ideas of Voltaire and others inspired a revolution.

Civilisation 10: The Smile of Reason: 3

"Those who haven't lived in the eighteenth century before the Revolution do not know the sweetness of life" Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.

The salon represented a form resistance  against an autocratic king and a centralised and authoritarian government. They brought together the brightest intellects of France. There aim was to transform society. One of the ways of countering the excesses of a king was to engage with the writing of an encyclopaedia  that would accurately define words and counter the official language, the language of an authoritarian government.

Clark travels to Scotland to discuss the great names in in the world of ideas and science: Adam smith, David Hume, Joseph Black and James Watt. These 18th Century Scots help to transform the whole current of European thought and life.

Civilisation 10: The Smile of Reason: 2

  

Here Clark discusses art and culture, and role of the amateur in England and France. In the 17th and 18th Century we begin to see the development of public sphere. In 18th Century France  we see the emergence of the salon, which were for forty years the centres of European civilisation.  The salon was the place to converse away from the stifling culture of the royal court. The salon was a success largely because the French government was situated in Versailles.  These salons were held by key figures such as Madame du Deffand, Madame de Sorquainville and Madame Geoffrin.

Civilisation 10: The Smile of Reason: 1

  

“The Smile of Reason” explores the period from the enlightenment to the English, American and French and industrial revolutions and the rise of republicanism. Kenneth Clark traces the ideological journey which led from the great palaces at Blenheim and Versailles to Jefferson's Monticello.

 We begin this episode with the Enlightenment and the philosopher Voltaire.  Clark observes that "although the victory of reason and tolerance was won in France, it was initiated in England" (Clark, 1969 p. 246)

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view, London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 9: The Pursuit of Happiness: 5

  

This study of pleasure in the 18^th Century moves now to Mozart. One must remember however, to paraphrase the words of Robert Hughes, in the 18th Century the pleasure principle only existed for one class: the aristocracy. 

Civilisation 9: The Pursuit of Happiness: 4

  

By the time Watteau died, in 1721, the Rococo style was beginning to effect decoration and architecture. It became an international style ten years later, spreading across Europe in a similar fashion as early 15^th Century Gothic.  Rococo was the visual equivalent of the experience of joy and the visual articulation of pleasure.

Civilisation 9: The Pursuit of Happiness: 3

We move from Bach to Handel. Handel’s style of music “remained faithful throughout his life to the Italian Baroque style. “His music” Clark says, “goes well with the decorations of Tiepolo” (1969, p.231). 

The Baroque, an Italian invention “first came into being as religious architecture" and was used to express “the emotional aspirations of the Catholic Church” (Clark, C., 1969 p.231). Rococo on the other hand “was to some extent a Parisian invention and provocatively secular” (Clark, C., 1969 p.231). It was on a superficial level a reaction against the Classicism of Versailles: “instead of the static orders of antiquity, it drew inspiration from natural objects in which the line wandered freely- shells, flowers seaweed- especially if it wandered in a double curve… it represented a real gain in sensibility” (Clark, C., 1969 p.231). This was drawn from one particular artist: Watteau.

Sources:

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 9: The Pursuit of Happiness: 2

      

This part of episode 9 looks at the musical traditions of Germany: Bach’s music which grew out of the Italian style and the other musical tradition that came out of Dutch and German churches. German baroque architecture is also discussed. 

Civilisation 9: The Pursuit of Happiness: 1

I put the first episode of Civilisation up on my blog because it showed the fragility of cultures and societies. It showed us some very interesting cultural artefacts. I suppose the ones that seemed more important to me were the examples of Celtic design in the Book of Kells. 

I was tempted to try and upload all of series, but I think that would be madness. So, it was best to be selective. I thought that I would race through the centuries and series and look at episode nine and the 18^th Century.  In the “The Pursuit of Happiness” Kenneth Clark reflects on the nature of 18th century music, the work of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. He discusses the painter Watteau and considers that some of its qualities are found in Rococo architecture. In 18^th century music “- its melodious flow, its complex symmetry, its decorative invention- are reflected in the architecture; but not its deeper appeal to the emotions” (Clark, K, 1969 p. 221). The discussion of the ornate design of Rococo is fascinating, because Clark makes the argument that “the Rococo style has a place in civilisation” (1969, p.221). Clarke complains that “serious minded used to call it shallow and corrupt, chiefly because it was intended for pleasure; well the founders of the American Constitution who were far from frivolous, thought fit to mention the pursuit of happiness as a proper aim of mankind, and even if ever this aim has been given visible form it is in Rococo architecture- the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of love” (Clark, K, 1969 p. 221).

Clark does discuss the style that preceded Rococo, the classical style that was a symbol of a rigid and centralised authoritarian government. Classicism was, is the architecture of bureaucrats, “gifted civil servants” and not craftsmen- “grandeur achieved through the authoritarian state” and is the “architecture of a great metropolitan culture” (Clark, K, 1969 p. 221). There is in classicism a coldness and a “certain inhumanity”, that we see inform the architecture of power in the 20^th Century and beyond. The differences between classicism and the rococo recall an earlier observation by Clark about Greek classicism. It is, Clark argues, “static and cold” in comparison with the mobility of the symbol of the Atlantic man, the Viking ship (Clark, 1969 p.14). 

Sources:
Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 1: The Skin of Our Teeth: 5

Charlemagne ruled "an empire stretching from Denmark to the Adriatic" and "amassed treasure from all over the known world" (Clark, 1969, p. 23).  "In the end", however, "it was the books that mattered- not only the texts but the illustrations and the bindings" (Clark, K., 1969 p. 23). Knowledge is power. 

Despite some of my reservations about the series and the book, its conservatism and sometimes dubious claims, it does show a great deal of insight into our European artistic and cultural past. It is quite enlightening. It is intelligent and sometimes witty. It is also important to remember that Clark's anxiety about the fragility of (Western) civilisation is not limited to cultural conservatives. 

Sources:

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view, London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 1: The Skin of Our Teeth: 4

"Charlemagne is the first great man of action to emerge from the darkness since the collapse of the Roman world" (Clark, 1969, p.18).

The clip chronicles the rise of the Frankish Kingdom after the defeat of the Moors in 732AD by Charles Martel. Without Martel's victory "Western Civilisation may never have existed" and without Charlemagne the great administrator and tireless campaigner  "we would never have had the notion of a United Europe" (Clark, 1969, p.18).

Clark, K., (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 1: The Skin of Our Teeth: 3

Western civilisation according to Clark, was kept alive by holy men in places like Iona, the centre of Celtic Christianity. Here we see examples of the amazing designs of manuscripts and crosses produced by the Celtic Church, in what is known as the Irish style. It is not clear whether the manuscripts were designed in Iona or Lindisfarne.  The book of gospels with its “pure pages of ornament are almost the richest and most complicated pieces of abstract decoration ever produced”, and is Clark suggests “more sophisticated and refined than anything in Islamic art” (Clark, 1969 p.11). Clark does seem to generally ignore the contribution of Islamic art and science on Western European thought. It is worth remembering that in Victorian Britain Islamic and Celtic design seem to fuse in the arts and crafts.

With the Norseman on the move places like Iona became unsafe so the Abbott of Iona fled to Ireland. What we see from this chaos are clear differences between “Atlantic man” and the “Mediterranean man” and the new technical skills of the Viking’s journeys, which represent a new achievement of the western world” (Clark, 1969 p.14).  The symbol that distinguishes “Atlantic man” from the Greek temple of “Mediterranean man” is the Viking ship. Clark states that “the Greek temple is static and cold” while “the ship is mobile and light” (Clark, 1969 p.14).

These oppositions of permanence and mobility are themes that run through Civilisation. There are tensions between cultural restlessness and a need to settle and create order out of the flux of experiences.

This particular clip ends with the rise of the Frankish Kingdom and the creation of the Holy Roman Empire.  "Incidentally", says Clark  "drawings of the ninth century show, almost for the very first time, that the horsemen have stirrups, and people who like mechanical explanations for historical events maintain that this was the reason why the Frankish cavalry was victorious" (Clark, 1969 p.14).

Sources:

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 1: The Skin of Our Teeth: 2

The above is the second clip from the first episode “The Skin of our Teeth” and begins waves and waves of barbarians crossing the Danube. Some become romanized and then other more destructive forces arrived: Huns amongst them. Rome had practically collapsed and Civilisation according to Clark “might have drifted downstream for a long time”, if it had not been for the appearance of “a new force” in the middle of the 7^th Century, “with faith, energy, a will to conquer and an alternative culture: Islam” (1969, p.7).  The classical world was overrun in about fifty years: “only its bleached bones stood out against the Mediterranean sky” (1969, p.7). 

                So now the new civilisation would have to face the Atlantic. For now the old source of civilisation was sealed off.  The experience according Clark was one of melancholy and boredom. Christian scholars would seek out refuge in “the most inaccessible fringes of Cornwall, Ireland and the Hebrides” (Clark, 1969 p.7). Places “on the edge of the world” like Skellig Michael in the West of Ireland were places where fragments of Western Civilisation found take refuge from Viking raiders  and survive (Clark, 1969 p.7). 

Sources:

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Civilisation 1: The Skin of Our Teeth: 1

“ 'Civilisation’…. an ambiguous term, denoting on the one hand enlightened and progressive development and on the other hand an achieved and threatened state, becoming increasingly retrospective and often in practice identified with the received glories of the past (Williams, R., 1977 p.15).

I received the box set of Civilisation for Christmas from my girlfriend. It is a fantastic present and I have already got through the first disc. It is a shame that I did not get it earlier, because some of the series deals with things relevant to the Media Technologies and Public Spheres unit. 

I cannot help recall the first time I saw it on television, which must have been when I was about ten years old and staying at my grandmother’s house (a repeat of series no doubt after the death of Kenneth Clark). I watched it with a mix of boredom and a sort of negative feeling, not because I disliked history or art, but because I was suspicious of elites and uncomfortable about the grandeur of the state (something that I would feel when viewing the Great Court of Blenheim Palace on a school trip. The West and East Facade’s are far warmer and inviting). There also was something frivolous about it (I do not fully believe this now)…. and who was this posh bloke telling me what civilisation was?

Civilisation- or more accurately titled Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark is a thirteen part series originally shown on BBC 2. The scope of this series is incredible. It deals with architecture, art music, philosophy, poetry, religious thinking, engineering and science. The first episode introduces the series and explains that it deals with the achievements of Western Man. So, according to this series, women “made almost no contribution to European culture or thought” (Walker, J., 1993, p. 80). I love the series for its visual content and its breadth and care for history and art, but ideologically it is at times quite loathsome and far from being disinterested.

This first episode is called “The Skin of our Teeth” and deals with the period around the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and discusses the waves of barbarians that entered Western Europe following the Empires stagnation and decline.  The title refers to Clark’s belief that Western European civilization was lucky to survive the collapse of Rome. The above clip deals with Rome and Greek culture as “An Expression of an Ideal” (Hearn, M., 2005p.20). This ideal becomes stagnant. Its failures do not stop Clark from comparing African art unfavourably to Greek and Roman antiquity. Unlike Roman and Greek statues African masks “could not be regarded as manifestations of civilisation” (Clark, K., 1969 and Walker, J., 1993, p. 80). This was, according to Clark “because they signified darkness and superstition rather than rationality” (Clark, K., 1969 and Walker, J., 1993, p. 80). Yet no evidence was provided to support this contentious judgement.

Sources:

Clark, K (1969) Civilisation: A personal view. London: BBC/J. Murray

Hearn, M., (2005) Civilisation: A personal view, Viewing Notes, London: BBC DVD

Walker, J., (1993) Arts TV, London: John Libbey

Williams, R., Marxism and Literature, Oxford, OUP, 1977.