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The first and greatest TV series on the history of Western European Art and Architecture and history following the fall of Rome to the Barbarians up to modern times. Kenneth Clark really knows his stuff and is a really top presenter with fine insight added to knowledge. Great locations and art works. Each programme has so much information that you can find yourself happily watching it for several days and over many years. Know this series and absorb the knowledge and you will be able to feel you really can talk with some knowledge and opinion on Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, the Mediaeval period art, the Renaissance, Michelangelo, , Bernini, great Cathedral building, the Baroque and hundreds of more topics involving western European art and history. This series will not let you down. Buy it! Know it! Enjoy it! Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
This 13-part, 35mm colour series was an amazing piece of ground-breaking television in the late 1960s; the first of several landmark documentary series commissioned by then BBC Controller, David Attenborough, back in the days when you could respect the use to which the licence fee was put. Lord Clark, one of the UK's foremost art experts of the time, gives his overview of the development of Western European art, architecture, and religious & intellectual thought from about 800 to the 1960s. He is helped by on-location colour film of the most significant and beautiful paintings, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures, tapestries, altar-pieces, cathedrals, and palaces, to be found in Chartres, Paris, Cologne, Siena, Pisa, Florence, Urbino, Rome, and the principal museums of Western Europe. As a visual feast of what is best in our culture, this programme is very easy to enjoy, and Clark's voice is a soothing presence, as we flit through the centuries from one piece of art to another. I have watched this series several times, and I have to admit that, as a child and even as a young man training in Science, I enjoyed the series only at this superficial level. At another level, the viewer can begin to follow the outlines of Clark's historical progress: the energetic Viking decoration reflected in the Book of Kells and the gargoyles of medieval churches; the parallel development of the Romanesque from Roman ruins; the influence both of these styles on the Gothic; the humanisation of the Gothic into early Renaissance; the monumentalism and genius artists of the High Renaissance; the iconoclasm & artistic impoverishment of Northern Europe following the Reformation; and the popular, sensuous art of the Baroque Counter-Reformation. Thus far, to around 1650, Civilisation is closely connected with the evolution of the Catholic Church, with some input from powerful Italian & French Dukes. For all this time, the Church is, out of all proportion, the chief patron of the arts, and art movements are directed by high clerics like Abb'e Suger, and Popes Julius II & Paul III. At various times, the Church sees its role as teaching the illiterate by images in the Romanesque, elevating minds to God in the Gothic, summarising the Bible in the Cistine Chapel, or emphasing the pope's divine authority in opposition to Protestantism in St Peter's & the Baroque in general. These first seven episodes are the strength of the series. Clark speaks clear and slowly, but he nonetheless covers a lot of material quickly, moving from topic to topic, and making his points only once. Very close attention, probably with the use of subtitles, is required to absorb everything he says. Ideally, as art history freshmen, we should take lecture notes, and follow up references to the principal leaders, artists, architecture, and artwork he refers to. Or, buy the book accompanying the series. However, although Clark is able to maintain this thread so far in South West Europe, it falters in North West Europe after 1550, where there is often little art to accompany the great new intellectual and religious movements which follow the Reformation. Although we see snippets of Shakespeare, view Dutch masters, and listen to works of 18th century composers, some of the strengths of the early presentation are lost in the last 6 episodes, due to the complex and schismatic nature of history itself in the last 500 years. Here, one feels that the visual image is a poor substitute for the written word, and we are more dependent than before on Clark's personal choices of important artists and schools of thought. Some of Clark's views betray the prejudices of his time, and are now dated. There is also a strong strain of pessimism, perhaps the result of living through the destruction of two world wars and the then-recent Cuban missile crisis. He blames German seriousness and residual barbarism for what he sees as the cultural disaster of the Reformation. For him, visual art has never equalled the Raphael-Michelangelo peak of the High Renaissance in 1500, though he does grant architecture, literature and music later peaks in St Peter's (1590), Shakespeare (1600), & Mozart (1790). At one point, he says that we are the almost culturally bankcrupt inheritors of the Romantics, in itself a lesser artistic movement, in his view. However, the necessities of the series require that he ends on a positive note, accepting some `levelling off at the top' as a price worth paying for the expansion in mass education. Despite inevitable controversies in what is a personal view, this is a truly remarkable piece of television, which still has a lot to teach us 55 years after it was commissioned. I wouldn't be surprised if students of art and ordinary viewers continue to rewatch this programme deep into the 21st century. A true classic of world television. Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The days of the BBC being able to produce a high quality series of this kind are long gone. From Kenneth Clark’s excellent narration to the thoughtful camera work I cannot find anything to fault with this DVD. Also, and most importantly, the makers of the DVD had the wit not to alter the picture format from 4:3 to 16:9. If they had, they would have ruined the carefully thought out camera framing. The DVD’s cover warns of the picture quality and sound occasionally varying. Don’t let that put you off. I found both perfectly acceptable. If a viewer finds nothing new in ‘Civilisation’, then he or she is a deal smarter than I am. All in all, the best £15 that I’ve spent in a long time.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
Considering these films were made in 1969 they hold up very well. The photography is comparable to current work and I found the whole series very informative and entertaining. Many of the paintings, sculptures and architecture described are absolutely superb. I feel our civilisation is now static, or even going backwards for today's offerings on the whole are crude, and even ugly in comparison.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Informative and interesting. This is a gem of a series. They don’t make anything as good nowadays.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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