Editing Kenneth Clark (section)

===''Civilisation'', 1966–1969===
{{main|Civilisation (TV series)|}}
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote= I had no clear idea what "civilisation" meant, but thought it was preferable to barbarism, and fancied that this was the moment to say so.|salign = right|source= Clark on the genesis of ''Civilisation''<ref>Hearn, p. 7</ref>}}
[[David Attenborough]], the controller of the BBC's new second television channel, [[BBC2]], was in charge of introducing colour broadcasting to the UK. He conceived the idea of a series about great paintings as the standard-bearer for colour television, and had no doubt that Clark would be much the best presenter for it.<ref>Stourton, pp. 319–320</ref> Clark was attracted by the suggestion, but at first declined to commit himself. He later recalled that what convinced him that he should take part was Attenborough's use of the word "civilisation" to sum up what the series would be about.<ref name=cxvii/>

The series consisted of thirteen programmes, each fifty minutes long, written and presented by Clark, covering western European civilisation from the end of the Dark Ages to the early twentieth century. As the civilisation under consideration excluded Graeco-Roman, Asian and other historically important cultures, a title was chosen that disclaimed comprehensiveness: ''Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark''.{{refn|In the book derived from the series Clark wrote, "I didn't suppose that anyone would be so obtuse as to think that I had forgotten about the great civilisations of the pre-Christian era and the East. However, I confess the title has worried me. It would have been easy in the eighteenth century: ''Speculations on the Nature of Civilisation as illustrated by the Phases of Civilised Life in Western Europe from the Dark Ages to Present Day''. Unfortunately, this is no longer practicable."<ref name=cxvii>Clark (1969), p. xvii</ref>|group= n}} Although it focused chiefly on the visual arts and architecture, there were substantial sections about drama, literature, philosophy and socio-political movements. Clark wanted to include more about law and philosophy, but "I could not think of any way of making them visually interesting."<ref name=h16>Hearn, p. 16</ref>

After initial mutual antipathy, Clark and his principal director, [[Michael Gill (producer)|Michael Gill]], established a congenial working relationship. They and their production team spent three years from 1966 filming in a hundred and seventeen locations in thirteen countries.<ref>Hearn, p. 11</ref> The filming was to the highest technical standards of the day, and quickly went over budget; it cost £500,000 by the time it was complete.<ref>Hearn, p. 14</ref> Attenborough rejigged his broadcasting schedules to spread the cost by transmitting each episode twice in a week.<ref>Hearn, p. 12</ref>
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=left|quote= Scholars and academics had their understandable quibbles, but for the general public the series was something like a revelation. Art-museum exhibits in both England and the U.S. reported a surge of visitors following each episode.|salign = right|source= ''[[The New Yorker]]'' on ''Civilisation''<ref name=ny/>}}

There were complaints, then and later, that by focusing on a traditional choice of the great artists over the centuries – all of them male – Clark had neglected women and presented "a saga of noble names and sublime objects with little regard for the shaping forces of economics or practical politics".<ref name=bfi/><ref name=beard/> His ''modus operandi'' was dubbed "the great man approach",<ref name=beard>[[Mary Beard (classicist)|Beard, Mary]], [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/kenneth-clark-life-art-civilisation-james-stourton-review "Kenneth Clark by James Stourton: review"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170521003356/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/kenneth-clark-life-art-civilisation-james-stourton-review |date=21 May 2017 }}, ''The Guardian'', 1 October 2016</ref> and he described himself on screen as a hero-worshipper and a stick-in-the-mud.<ref name=c346>Clark (1969), pp. 346–347</ref> He commented that his outlook was "nothing striking, nothing original, nothing that could not have been written by an ordinary harmless bourgeois of the later nineteenth century":<ref>Clark (1977), p. 222</ref>
{{blockquote|I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.<ref name=c346/>|}}
[[File:Euclid.jpg|thumb|Detail from [[Raphael]]'s ''[[The School of Athens]]'', reproduced on the cover of the book and DVD versions of ''Civilisation'']]

The broadcaster [[Huw Wheldon]] believed that ''Civilisation'' was "a truly great series, a major work&nbsp;... the first magnum opus attempted and realised in terms of TV."<ref>Hearn, p. 15</ref> There was a widespread view among critics, including some unsympathetic to Clark's selections, that the filming set new standards.{{refn|The series was described as "visually stunning" by critics on both sides of the Atlantic, including Paul B. Harvey in the US and Mary Beard in Britain.<ref name=beard/><ref>Harvey, Paul B. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41780153 "The Art of Being Civilised"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227090054/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41780153 |date=27 February 2018 }}, ''[[Archaeology (magazine)|Archaeology]]'', Vol. 59, No. 5 (September/October 2006), pp. 52–53.  {{subscription required}}</ref> In 2011 Jonathan Jones wrote in ''The Guardian'' of ''Civilisation's'' "sheer visual beauty&nbsp;... the camerawork and direction&nbsp;... rise to the poetry of cinema".<ref>Jones, Jonathan. [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jan/24/civilisation-high-definition-kenneth-clark "Why the BBC is right to bring us back to Civilisation"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006062613/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jan/24/civilisation-high-definition-kenneth-clark |date=6 October 2017 }}, ''The Guardian'', 24 January 2011</ref>|group= n}} ''Civilisation'' attracted unprecedented viewing figures for a high art series: 2.5 million viewers in Britain and 5 million in the US.<ref name=h16/> Clark's accompanying book has never been out of print, and the BBC continued to sell thousands of copies of the DVD set of ''Civilisation'' every year.<ref>Stourton, p. 452</ref> In 2016, ''The New Yorker'' echoed the words of [[John Betjeman]], describing Clark as "the man who made the best telly you've ever seen".<ref name=ny>Meis, Morgan. [https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-seductive-enthusiasm-of-kenneth-clarks-civilisation "The Seductive Enthusiasm of Kenneth Clark's ''Civilisation''"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727184308/http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-seductive-enthusiasm-of-kenneth-clarks-civilisation |date=27 July 2017 }}, ''The New Yorker'', 21 December 2016</ref>

The British Film Institute notes how ''Civilisation'' changed the shape of cultural television, setting the standard for later documentary series, from [[Alastair Cooke]]'s ''[[America: A Personal History of the United States|America]]'' (1972) and [[Jacob Bronowski]]'s ''[[The Ascent of Man]]'' (1973) to the present day.<ref name=bfi/>