Editing Kenneth Clark (section)

===Early years===
{{multiple image|caption_align=center| align = right| direction = horizontal| header_align = center| footer_align = left| image1 = Charles Sims--Sir Kenneth Clark when he was a boy circa 1911.jpg| width1 =190|alt1=Young white boy paddling in the sea alongside a toy boat| caption1 =As a boy, 1911|image2=Kenneth Clark photographed by Herbert Lambert.jpg|width2=153|alt2= White teenage boy with neat dark hair|caption2=As a teenager, {{circa}} 1918}}

Clark was born at 32 [[Grosvenor Square]], London,{{refn|Clark noted in his memoirs that his birthplace later became the site of the [[Embassy of the United States, London|American Embassy]]<ref name=c1/>|group= n}} the only child of Kenneth Mackenzie Clark and his wife, (Margaret) Alice, daughter of James McArthur of Manchester.<ref name=dnb>Piper, David. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30934 "Clark, Kenneth Mackenzie, Baron Clark (1903–1983)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, retrieved 14 June 2017  {{ODNBsub}}</ref> The Clarks were a Scottish family who had grown rich in the textile trade. Clark's great-great-grandfather invented the cotton [[Bobbin|spool]], and the [[Coats Group|Clark Thread Company]] of [[Paisley, Renfrewshire|Paisley]] had grown into a substantial business.<ref name=c1/> Kenneth Clark senior worked briefly as a director of the firm and retired in his mid-twenties as a member of the "idle rich", as Clark junior later put it: although "many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler".<ref name=c1>Clark (1974), p. 1</ref><ref>Stourton, p. 7</ref> The Clarks maintained country homes at Sudbourne Hall, Suffolk, and at [[Ardnamurchan]], Argyll, and wintered on the French Riviera.<ref name=dnb/><ref>Secrest, p. 18</ref> Kenneth senior was a sportsman, a gambler,{{refn|Clark senior is thought by some to have been the inspiration for the popular song "[[The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (song)|The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo]]".<ref>Secrest, p. 6</ref>|group= n}} an eccentric and a heavy drinker.<ref name=dnb/><ref>Clark (1974), p. 25</ref> Clark had little in common with his father, though he always remained fond of him. Alice Clark was shy and distant, but her son received affection from a devoted nanny.<ref>Secrest, p. 28</ref>

As an only child not especially close to his parents, the young Clark had a boyhood that was often solitary, but he was generally happy. He later recalled that he used to take long walks, talking to himself, a habit he believed stood him in good stead as a broadcaster: "Television is a form of soliloquy".<ref name=coleman>Coleman, Terry. "Lord Clark", ''The Guardian'', 26 November 1977, p. 9</ref> On a modest scale Clark senior collected pictures, and the young Kenneth was allowed to rearrange the collection. He developed a competent talent for drawing, for which he later won several prizes as a schoolboy.<ref name=times>"Obituary: Lord Clark", ''The Times'', 23 May 1983, p. 16</ref> When he was seven he was taken to an exhibition of Japanese art in London, which was a formative influence on his artistic tastes; he recalled, "dumb with delight, I felt that I had entered a new world".<ref>Hotta-Lister, pp. 183–184</ref><ref>Stourton, p. 15</ref>
[[File:John Ruskin 1863.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6|[[John Ruskin]], whose writings inspired the young Clark]]
Clark was educated at [[Wixenford School]] and, from 1917 to 1922, [[Winchester College]]. The latter was known for its intellectual rigour  and – to Clark's dismay – enthusiasm for sports, but it also encouraged its pupils to develop interests in the arts.<ref>Torrance, p. 13; and "Battlefields of Winchester", ''Country Life'', 6 April 1989, p. 183</ref> The headmaster, Montague Rendall, was a devotee of Italian painting and sculpture; he inspired Clark, among many others, to appreciate the works of [[Giotto]], [[Botticelli]], [[Giovanni Bellini|Bellini]] and their compatriots.<ref>Secrest, p. 39; and Stourton, p. 25</ref> The school library contained the collected writings of [[John Ruskin]], which Clark read avidly, and which influenced him for the rest of his life, not only in their artistic judgments but in their progressive political and social beliefs.<ref>Stourton, p. 22</ref>{{refn|Clark's biographer James Stourton writes, "His debt to Ruskin can never be sufficiently emphasised, and it informed many of his interests: the Gothic Revival, J. M. W. Turner, socialism, and the belief that art criticism can be a branch of literature. But above all, Ruskin taught Clark that art and beauty are everyone's birthright – and he took that message into the twentieth century."<ref>Stourton, p. 5</ref>|group= n}}

From Winchester, Clark won a scholarship to [[Trinity College, Oxford]], where he studied modern history. He graduated in 1925 with a second-class honours degree. In the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', [[David Piper (curator)|Sir David Piper]] comments that Clark had been expected to gain a first-class degree, but had not applied himself single-mindedly to his historical studies: "his interests had already turned conclusively to the study of art".<ref name=dnb/>

While at Oxford, Clark was greatly impressed by the lectures of [[Roger Fry]], the influential art critic who staged the first [[Post-Impressionism]] exhibitions in Britain. Under Fry's influence he developed an understanding of modern French painting, particularly the work of [[Paul Cézanne]].<ref name=dtel>Dorment, Richard. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/10841255/Kenneth-Clark-Looking-for-Civilisation-a-lifetimes-understanding.html "Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation, review"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180114130629/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/10841255/Kenneth-Clark-Looking-for-Civilisation-a-lifetimes-understanding.html |date=14 January 2018 }}, ''The Telegraph'', 19 May 2014</ref> Clark attracted the attention of Charles F. Bell, Keeper of the Fine Art Department of the [[Ashmolean Museum]]. Bell became a mentor to him and suggested that for his [[Bachelor of Letters|B Litt]] thesis Clark should write about the [[Gothic Revival architecture|Gothic revival]] in architecture. At that time it was a deeply unfashionable subject; no serious study had been published since the nineteenth century.<ref>"The Gothic Mood", ''The Observer'', 24 February 1929, p. 6</ref> Although Clark's main area of study was the [[Renaissance]], his admiration for Ruskin, the most prominent defender of the neo-Gothic style, drew him to the topic. He did not complete the thesis, but later turned his researches into his first full-length book, ''The Gothic Revival'' (1928).<ref name=dnb/> In 1925, Bell introduced Clark to [[Bernard Berenson]], an influential scholar of the Italian Renaissance and consultant to major museums and collectors. Berenson was working on a revision of his book ''Drawings of the Florentine Painters'', and invited Clark to help. The project took two years, overlapping with Clark's studies at Oxford.<ref>[http://arthistorians.info/berensonb "Berenson, Bernard"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180323220213/http://arthistorians.info/berensonb |date=23 March 2018 }}, Dictionary of Art Historians, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref>