Author: penwithlit

Here the great age opens. Physics becomes in those years the greatest collective work of science — no, more than that, the great collective work of art of the twentieth century.

J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, p. 330

When I was twelve years old I watched a most remarkable television program. This program did not so much change my life — I was twelve, just barely conscious of a life as something my own — as it set the primary intellectual course of my life. My parents generously bought me the big book that was basically a transcript of the show. I have treasured that book for forty years.

I’ve recently finished a reread of Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man and I found it an exhilarating, inspiring experience again. But the sweetness is tempered by a sad and tragic bitterness on which I will touch. Bronowski’s gentle…

Civilisation by Kenneth Clark (1969, John Murray)

I first heard of Kenneth Clark (1903-1983)—the British art historian best known for his 13-part BBC documentary series Civilisation (1969)—in 2011. I watched all the episodes some time in 2012 but only recently went through the companion volume Civilisation: A Personal View. Clark, who had served as the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the National Gallery in London, presents a sweeping and fascinating survey of Western Europe in this project—from the fall of the Roman Empire up till the post-Marxist situation. He makes sense of society through the lens of art (mostly visual and concrete) and offers a subjective assessment of the flow of ideas.

I am yet to come across another documentary on history and culture that matches the class and sophistication of this one. The title of the series was troubling for the art historian and broadcaster. While the…