Civilisation is the crowning achievement in the career of Lord Kenneth Clark. It \ is an unforgettable epic journey through Western culture that spans eleven countries and \ more than sixteen centuries of Western civilization's art, architecture, philosophy, and \ history. Vol. 1: Programs 1, 2 & 3: This tape includes Program One: The Skin of Our Teeth Traveling from Byzantine Ravenna to the Celtic Hebrides, from the Norway of the Vikings to Charlemagne's chapel at Aachen, Lord Clark illuminates the Dark Ages, the six centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Program Two: The Great Thaw The sudden reawakening of the twelfth-century European civilization is traced from the first manifestations at the Abbey of Cluny to its high point, the building of the cathedral at Chartres. Program Three: Romance and Reality Lord Clark journeys from a castle in the Loire, through the hills of Tuscany and Umbria to the cathedral baptistry at Pisa as he explores the aspirations and achievements of the later Middle Ages in France and Italy.
Vol. 2: Programs 4, 5 & 6: This tape includes Program Four: Man—The Measure of All Things Lord Clark visits Florence, where European thought enjoyed new impetus by rediscovery of its classical past. He also journeys to the palaces at Urbino and Mantua, centers of Renaissance civilization. Program Five: The Hero as Artist Papal Rome in the sixteenth century, where Christianity and antiquity begin to converge, provides the focus for this look at Michelangelo, Raphael, and da Vinci. Join Lord Clark as he explores the courtyards of the Vatican, the rooms decorated for the Pope by Raphael, and the Sistine Chapel. Program Six: Protest and Communication The Reformation is explored. Lord Clark tours the Germany of Albrecht Durer and Martin Luther, the world of Erasmus, the France of Montaigne, and visits Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England.
Vol. 3: Programs 7, 8 & 9: This tape includes Program Seven: Grandeur and Obedience Visit the Rome of the Counter-Reformation—The Rome of Michelangelo and Bernini. The Catholic Church in its fight against the Protestant north developed a new splendor symbolized by the glory of St. Peter’s. Program Eight: The Light of Experience The telescope and microscope revealed new worlds in space and in a drop of water. The realism found in Dutch painting took the observation of human character to a new stage of development. Program Nine: The Pursuit of Happiness The harmonious flow and complex symmetry of eighteenth-century music—the compositions of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart—are reflected in the best rococo architecture of that period, as seen in the churches and palaces of Bavaria.
Vol. 4: Programs 10 & 11: This tape includes Program Ten: The Smile of Reason The polite chat in the elegant salons of eighteenth-century Paris became the precursor of revolutionary politics. This theme takes Lord Clark from the great European palaces like Blenheim and Versailles to Jefferson’s Monticello. Program Eleven: The Worship of Nature The belief in the divinity of nature usurped Christianity’s position as the chief creative force in Western civilization, ushering in the Romantic movement. Examining this force, Lord Clark takes us to Tintern Abbey, the Swiss Alps, and the landscapes of Turner and Constable.
Vol. 5: Programs 12 & 13: This tape includes Program Twelve: The Fallacies of Hope The French Revolution led to the dicatorship of Napolean and the dreary bureaucracies of the nineteenth century. The disillusionment of the Romantic artists is traced through the music of Beethoven, the poetry of Byron, the paintings of Delacroix, and the sculpture of Rodin. Program Thirteen: Heroic Materialism Lord Clark’s thoughts on the materialism and humanitarianism of the past century take him from the English industrial landscape of the nineteenth century to the towering skyscrapers of New York City in the twentieth.
