|
|
|
Civilisation: A Personal View
by Kenneth Clark
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Harpercollins (1990-09)
ISBN: 0060907878
EAN: 9780060907877
Dewy Decimal #: 940
Paperback: 432 pages
SKU: 42951
Condition: Collectable Like New
Comments: THE HARDCOVER BOOK! GIFT QUALITY. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION. HARDBACK BOOK, DUST JACKET AND PAGES ARE FINE. RAPID SHIPPING WITH FREE TRACKING. GREAT PACKAGING. PRIORITY AIR MAIL.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Good, if only about art
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-01-15
6 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is one of those books which you would expect to be about something, but when you open it you find it's really about something else. You would expect a book titled "Civilisation" to be about, well...civilisation. Instead, it's about art in its various forms, and how they reflect the civilisation that they accompany. Further, it has nothing to do with art outside Western Europe: Poland, the Balkans, Scandinavia, and Russia are all ignored, to say nothing of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, or Latin America. The author excuses it by saying that while he admires art from there, he knows little about it, and this book is about what he knows: art, primarily painting, from ancient Greece and Rome, Italy, France, and Britain, with a bit from the U.S.A. and Spain, up to the mid-18th Century.
The book is really the transcript of a televised series of the same title, narrated by the author. This gives it a conversational style that's readable and interesting, and which pulls the book along quite nicely. It's accompanied by almost 300 illustrations, in my edition, many in color. It's a beautiful book, and very interesting, but rather limited by the subject and the medium of the published book made from TV. These (I've read one other, by J.F.C. Fuller, on leaders in World War II) have strange limitations, because they tend to be very personal, from the point of view of the narrator. So I enjoyed this book, but with rather large limitations: the author's opinions are really what the book is about, and if you aren't interested in those, you're wasting your time.
|
|
A very civilized survey of Western art and architecture
Rating  (5)
Date: 2004-11-10
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a very civilized survey of the highlights of Western art and architecture. Lord Clark an art- historian by profession writes with skill, taste and humor. In the opening of the book he quotes Ruskin as saying that " great nations write their autobigraphies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood without reading the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last" This is the line that Lord Clark adopts as he focuses primarily on the art works and the architecture. But his survey is at all points learned insightful cultured and a pleasure to read.
|
|
A treasure of a book
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-03-29
10 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
If I had to chose 5 books for eternity, this would be one. I first read it as a recent college grad when it was published in the early '70's. It helped estabish my view of western civilization and art. I have scoured used book stores for copies to give to others and I am pleased it is again available. I treasure this volume and would be lost without it.
|
|
Made me wish it were a longer book
Rating  (4)
Date: 2001-10-10
10 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
Starting with chapter 1, "The Skin of Our Teeth" (covering ground more recently trod by Thomas Cahill's HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION), and culminating with chapter 13's "Heroic Materialism", Clark produces a joyful, sometimes wary look at the painting, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, music, science, and even engineering that have contributed to the evolution of Western Civilization.Clark's writing most definitely does not fall into the dry, verbally bloated academic style (which never fails to give me the heebie-jeebies), but instead, his words issue a warmth, an inviting, conversational tone, and his thoughts are timeless, which is fortunate, as CIVILISATION is just over 30 years old. Worthwhile? Yep.
|
|
Lord Clark of Civilisation
Rating (5)
Date: 2001-08-16
4 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
(Not to be confused with his late, equally erudite son, Alan Clark of Barbarism. No joke.) On one level this is a companion piece for the classic 1960s documentary series of the same name; on another a stand-alone introduction to Western art and civilization. Civilization is defined as a culture's ability to celebrate and reflect upon its very existence. Clark believed that a successful culture required more than just patronage of the arts; above all, it required the embrace of internationalism, the free-flow of ideas across borders. This book has transcended its 1960s context, where the perceived "enemy" was the hand-wringing, self-loathing basher of Western society. Today, the real foe is the isolationist "when-I-hear-the-word- Culture-I-reach-for-my-gun" type. Clark would have no time for their ilk, and his spirited defense works against them too.
|
|
|
|
|