Civilisation

Civilisation—in full, Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark—is a 1969 British television documentary series written and presented by the art historian Kenneth Clark. The thirteen programmes in the series outline the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages. The series was produced by the BBC and aired from February to May 1969 on BBC2. Then, and in later transmissions in Britain, the US and other countries it reached an unprecedented number of viewers for an art series. Clark's book of the same title, based on the series, was published in 1969. Its production standards were generally praised and set the pattern for subsequent television documentary series. The New Yorker magazine described it as revelatory for the general viewer. The BBC's DVD issue in 2005 has remained in the catalogues, and Clark's accompanying 1969 book has never been out of print. Background Clark had pioneered British television series about art, beginning in 1958, with Is Art Necessary?, an experimental series for Associated Television, a commercial broadcaster. Over the next eight years Clark wrote and presented series and one-off programmes on the visual arts, ranging from Caravaggio to Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh and Picasso, and a co-production for commercial television and the BBC, Royal Palaces.