John Betjeman described him as “the man who made the best telly you’ve ever seen”. Kenneth Clark was just three years older than JB (KC,born 1903) and just as good a performer in front of a TV camera.
What Betjeman was to poetry, architecture and trains, Clark was to the history of art. Some of Betjeman’s TV films are on YouTube but KC has more enduring telly fame. His 1969 thirteen part series, Civilisation, is on BBC IPlayer and the book of the series is still readily available. He had made art programmes before but not in colour and not on this scale; more than eight hours. JB became Poet Laureate at sixty-six. KC received his laurels young; at twenty-seven director of the Ashmolean, at thirty director of the National Gallery, a year later Surveyor of the King’s Pictures and knighted when he was thirty-five.
In the war the NG pictures were sent to a slate mine in Wales to avoid the Blitz. He brought back one a month to be exhibited at the NG and put on regular concerts at the National Gallery – all rather good for morale – and there is still a Picture of the Month in Trafalgar Square; this month, Mary Magdalene by Girolamo Savoldo.
Also in the war, in the Ministry of Information, he set up the War Artists’ Advisory Committee and persuaded the government to employ some two hundred official war artists many of whom are household names today: Edward Ardizzone, Paul and John Nash, Mervyn Peake, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Jacob Epstein, Laura Knight, L. S. Lowry, Henry Moore and Stanley Spencer.
I am watching Civilisation with huge pleasure. What struck me immediately is that he doesn’t over-explain anything. He describes something, putting it in context, without starting every shot saying where he is or when it was built or by whom. He is urbane, conveying his impressively wide knowledge with elegant clarity and always in a suit and tie whether he is in Italy or on a Scottish isle. In that sense it is a period piece and it is also his personal view. He restricts himself to western European civilisation from the Dark Ages to the 20th century without apology.
“ 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.” (Civilisation)
So good to hear – thank-you.
KC summarised what indeed a civilised people should be. Magnificent.