I’m continuing to trudge my way thorugh Sir Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, the groundbreaking British television series, first broadcast in 1969. In my first post, I was somewhat scathing, describing Clark’s view of western civilisation as “mindless” but added that my judgement might be somewhat prejudiced as I’d only watched the first half dozen of the thirteen episodes. Several days later, having watched the episode on the Catholic Counter-Reformation, I conceded that perhaps I’d been a little harsh, though maintaining that my central criticisms were still valid. Now, having just watched the episode on eighteenth century music and the impact of the Rococo, I feel that I must once again backtrack somewhat. In this episode, Clark’s sympathy for Catholicism is evident, not least in his observation that the so-called Enlightenment and Age of Reason produced no great art. Even at the height of the Enlightenment’s influence, Clark observes, the great art was inspired by religion and had its roots in Rome.
Clark’s woeful grasp of Christian theology is evident in an awkward section in which he describes the sculptures depicting paradise in a Bavarian church as having more in common with the Islamic vision of heaven than with the “disembodied Paradise” of the Christians. One presumes that Clark learned before his later reception into the Church that there is nothing “disembodied” about the Christian heaven, rooted as it is in the Incarnation and the resurrection of the body. Apart from this one maladroit faux pas, the rest of Clark’s handling of the eighteenth century is excellent. In particular, the final part in which he defends opera is materfully insightful, especially his succinct summary of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
As I backtrack on my initial negative response to the first six episodes of Clark’s Civilisation it could be suggested that I should have reserved judgement until I had watched all thirteen episodes. Perhaps so. On the other hand, there’s something exhilarating and dynamic about the spontaneity of shooting from the hip. Also, and in my own defence, I should add that I stand by my central criticism that Clark’s lack of theology and philosophy blinds him to the animating spirit of the very civilisation he is admiring. There is a triune unity between the good, the true and the beautiful. Withough a full understanding of the good and the true we cannot understand the beautiful. Clark’s achilles’ heel is that he is an aesthete, first and foremost, and not a fully rounded Christian. If one does not see the theological symbolism in Christian art, one does not see the depth of its meaning but only its shiny surface. Clark, as an aesthete, is too much of a magpie who admires the shiny surface without plumbing the theological and philosophical depths.
I don’t think you should engage in too much self-chastisement, Joseph. If your initial critique is reactionary, your analysis of the whole is spot-on. In fact, your response to Civilization is parallel to Clark’s response to history: superficial exposition at first, with understanding at the conclusion. None of us can see the continuity of the unifying thread until the tapestry is revealed. Culpa, yes, but maxima, no.
I like your second thoughts, Joseph.
It is easy to forget that when Clark’s Civilization was first aired it was, despite Clark’s urbanity, just as shattering a blow against centuries old Anglosphere anti-Catholic cultural prejudice and mythology as Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars would be a quarter-century later, and more recently Michael Wood’s BBC series In Search of Shakespeare.