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Fact-check please: Can he possiblly have been made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1938? Ferg2k 05:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
This is listed as one of Clark's publications, but in fact the book went with a TV series which was, in my opinion, even better than Civilisation. Where the earlier program was very broad-brush, the later one focussed on a number of artists of the Romantic period, David, Delacroix, Turner, etc., and went into both the lives and works in great detail. The show wasn't as big a hit as Civilisation, but showed Clark I think at his professional best, that is, as a critic and aesthetician, as both informed admirer and curator of European art. I don't have enough details to contribute to writing such a section myself, but think it important to note in a biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theonemacduff ( talk • contribs) 17:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
The sentence
"When it was broadcast on PBS in 1969, Civilisation was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, catapulting Sir Kenneth to international fame."
could benefit through some addtional facts to help the the reader appreciate that this was first presented on the BBC in 1969 (twice actually) and was a hit in the UK and that citing PBS is taking a US perspective of its fame.
- Changed
Is there any evidence that most of his admirers are from a Classical Liberal or Objectivist/Randian political standpoint, or even that Ayn Rand liked him? Without having the results of any opinion polls, his belief in tradition, authority, and culture seem to place him more as a traditional Conservative with some elements of the liberal humanist. Certainly, I don't see any evidence of a hyper-rationalist or objectivist Randian strain to his views; in contrast, he edited a collection of writings by the Victorian socialist John Ruskin (in bibliography). This sounds like a disciple of Ayn Rand trying to claim a famous forebear without proof.
I'd like to replace all "Sir Kenneth" by "Clark", if there is no objection. After all, this was a temporary title... John Wheater 09:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
"Clark was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied the history of art" - no doubt, but surely not formally? History of art was not a subject taught at either establishment until much later. Johnbod ( talk) 13:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
This comment should be deleted as anachronistic. Postmodernism didn't exist in 1969, so there's no sense in which Clark could be hostile to it, and certainly not extremely hostile. The writer has also selectively quoted from what Clark said in program 13 of Civilization, and omitted some of the quotation which would put it in a different light. The general tenor of Clark's remarks about "today's" students was positive, though somewhat bemused. What struck me on re-viewing the program was how un-dogmatic his remarks were, in contrast to this writer, who seems determined to do a nice juicy bit of character assassination. 24.81.25.127 ( talk) 05:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Was he a Tory Peer or a crossbencher or what? I assume there is a Peers category he should be in either way? -- LeedsKing ( talk) 22:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I can not find any references that back up the claim he converted to Catholicism in the final days of his life. I found a book on grave sites [1] that says he was buried in the Saltwood churchyard of Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's. Their website [2] indicates that they have communion using the Book of Common prayer, indicating that they are either Anglican or a Protestant dissenter group flowing from that denomination. It would be odd for a Catholic convert to be buried in a Protestant graveyard. While it does not appear that Catholic canon law outlaws such a burial, it does HIGHLY recommend Catholics be buried in Catholic graveyards [3] to insure burial practices are done in accord with the will of the Church. One would suspect that a convert would be especially sensitive to following the recommendations of his new faith.
I will continue to look for any trustworthy ref that backs up the claim that he converted to Catholicism. Until such a ref is found I am removing the claim from the article. Wowaconia ( talk) 23:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
This seems to indicate that he was Catholic at the time of the Civilization series, unsure if it is authoritative enough to merit using it as a ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2007/nov/18/featuresreview.review3 -- Wowaconia ( talk) 03:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian ( talk) 05:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Kenneth Clark, Baron Clark →
Kenneth Clark – Recently, the article was moved to the long name without prior discussion. I propose to revert the change, referring to the escape clause in
WP:NCPEER: "Peers who are almost exclusively known by their personal names". Clark was primarily notable as an art historian, in particular because of the television series
Civilisation. Doing a Google Book search for "Kenneth Clark" + Civilisation gives
34,400 hits, while "Baron Clark" + civilisation gives
248 hits and "Lord Clark" + Civilisation
2,440 hits. Dropping "Civilisation" from the queries gives similar results, though there are false positives for "Kenneth Clark", in particular hits for the
American psychologist.
Favonian (
talk)
23:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
A first rate article, Tim, and I'm enjoying it immensely. One point: In the National Gallery section, and perhaps beyond that, all paintings are named in inverts. I've taken a look at the articles, and they are italicised, such as Hadleigh Castle. Shouldn't these paintings be in italics? Cassianto Talk 10:00, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
The article does not explain how Clark became a Baron, or at least it is not obvious to an American reader. Can you please clarifyin the article, User:Tim riley or someone? -- Ssilvers ( talk) 17:48, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
"Clark surprised many in the arts and shocked some by accepting the chairmanship..." I added "in the arts". Am I correct? Can we clarify who is being referred to? -- Ssilvers ( talk) 18:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Per the ref at the Oxford ref, he was Slade prof again in 1961. Worth mentioning. Johnbod ( talk) 18:22, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Nicely done. I have a few suggestions which you may or may not wish to take up. I have meantime upgraded the article to B - it's obviously worth more than a Start.
A pleasure to read. Brianboulton ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
You will know it, and appreciate it, but his comment on attitudes towards Keble in the 1920s is too funny for words:
I put it in the Keble article some time ago, but suspect it's too tangential for here. Great to see you, by the way. KJP1 ( talk) 13:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
I checked the James Stourton's Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civilisation and it doesn't seem to mention Kenneth Clark as a life long labour voter. This seems to something that Mary Beard claims. Life long loyal voter... A big claim with little sources to back it. Jacob Zumba ( talk) 21:16, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
I have recently uploaded this photograph of KC as a teenager by Herbert Lambert to Wikimedia Commons. Please use it if you think you can find a place for it in this article. Liam2520 14:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
John Berger was a very popular critic, but did he have any knowledge of art history?-- Ralfdetlef ( talk) 09:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Kenneth Clark article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on July 13, 2018 and July 13, 2022. |
Fact-check please: Can he possiblly have been made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1938? Ferg2k 05:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
This is listed as one of Clark's publications, but in fact the book went with a TV series which was, in my opinion, even better than Civilisation. Where the earlier program was very broad-brush, the later one focussed on a number of artists of the Romantic period, David, Delacroix, Turner, etc., and went into both the lives and works in great detail. The show wasn't as big a hit as Civilisation, but showed Clark I think at his professional best, that is, as a critic and aesthetician, as both informed admirer and curator of European art. I don't have enough details to contribute to writing such a section myself, but think it important to note in a biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theonemacduff ( talk • contribs) 17:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
The sentence
"When it was broadcast on PBS in 1969, Civilisation was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, catapulting Sir Kenneth to international fame."
could benefit through some addtional facts to help the the reader appreciate that this was first presented on the BBC in 1969 (twice actually) and was a hit in the UK and that citing PBS is taking a US perspective of its fame.
- Changed
Is there any evidence that most of his admirers are from a Classical Liberal or Objectivist/Randian political standpoint, or even that Ayn Rand liked him? Without having the results of any opinion polls, his belief in tradition, authority, and culture seem to place him more as a traditional Conservative with some elements of the liberal humanist. Certainly, I don't see any evidence of a hyper-rationalist or objectivist Randian strain to his views; in contrast, he edited a collection of writings by the Victorian socialist John Ruskin (in bibliography). This sounds like a disciple of Ayn Rand trying to claim a famous forebear without proof.
I'd like to replace all "Sir Kenneth" by "Clark", if there is no objection. After all, this was a temporary title... John Wheater 09:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
"Clark was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied the history of art" - no doubt, but surely not formally? History of art was not a subject taught at either establishment until much later. Johnbod ( talk) 13:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
This comment should be deleted as anachronistic. Postmodernism didn't exist in 1969, so there's no sense in which Clark could be hostile to it, and certainly not extremely hostile. The writer has also selectively quoted from what Clark said in program 13 of Civilization, and omitted some of the quotation which would put it in a different light. The general tenor of Clark's remarks about "today's" students was positive, though somewhat bemused. What struck me on re-viewing the program was how un-dogmatic his remarks were, in contrast to this writer, who seems determined to do a nice juicy bit of character assassination. 24.81.25.127 ( talk) 05:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Was he a Tory Peer or a crossbencher or what? I assume there is a Peers category he should be in either way? -- LeedsKing ( talk) 22:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I can not find any references that back up the claim he converted to Catholicism in the final days of his life. I found a book on grave sites [1] that says he was buried in the Saltwood churchyard of Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's. Their website [2] indicates that they have communion using the Book of Common prayer, indicating that they are either Anglican or a Protestant dissenter group flowing from that denomination. It would be odd for a Catholic convert to be buried in a Protestant graveyard. While it does not appear that Catholic canon law outlaws such a burial, it does HIGHLY recommend Catholics be buried in Catholic graveyards [3] to insure burial practices are done in accord with the will of the Church. One would suspect that a convert would be especially sensitive to following the recommendations of his new faith.
I will continue to look for any trustworthy ref that backs up the claim that he converted to Catholicism. Until such a ref is found I am removing the claim from the article. Wowaconia ( talk) 23:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
This seems to indicate that he was Catholic at the time of the Civilization series, unsure if it is authoritative enough to merit using it as a ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2007/nov/18/featuresreview.review3 -- Wowaconia ( talk) 03:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian ( talk) 05:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Kenneth Clark, Baron Clark →
Kenneth Clark – Recently, the article was moved to the long name without prior discussion. I propose to revert the change, referring to the escape clause in
WP:NCPEER: "Peers who are almost exclusively known by their personal names". Clark was primarily notable as an art historian, in particular because of the television series
Civilisation. Doing a Google Book search for "Kenneth Clark" + Civilisation gives
34,400 hits, while "Baron Clark" + civilisation gives
248 hits and "Lord Clark" + Civilisation
2,440 hits. Dropping "Civilisation" from the queries gives similar results, though there are false positives for "Kenneth Clark", in particular hits for the
American psychologist.
Favonian (
talk)
23:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
A first rate article, Tim, and I'm enjoying it immensely. One point: In the National Gallery section, and perhaps beyond that, all paintings are named in inverts. I've taken a look at the articles, and they are italicised, such as Hadleigh Castle. Shouldn't these paintings be in italics? Cassianto Talk 10:00, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
The article does not explain how Clark became a Baron, or at least it is not obvious to an American reader. Can you please clarifyin the article, User:Tim riley or someone? -- Ssilvers ( talk) 17:48, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
"Clark surprised many in the arts and shocked some by accepting the chairmanship..." I added "in the arts". Am I correct? Can we clarify who is being referred to? -- Ssilvers ( talk) 18:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Per the ref at the Oxford ref, he was Slade prof again in 1961. Worth mentioning. Johnbod ( talk) 18:22, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Nicely done. I have a few suggestions which you may or may not wish to take up. I have meantime upgraded the article to B - it's obviously worth more than a Start.
A pleasure to read. Brianboulton ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
You will know it, and appreciate it, but his comment on attitudes towards Keble in the 1920s is too funny for words:
I put it in the Keble article some time ago, but suspect it's too tangential for here. Great to see you, by the way. KJP1 ( talk) 13:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
I checked the James Stourton's Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civilisation and it doesn't seem to mention Kenneth Clark as a life long labour voter. This seems to something that Mary Beard claims. Life long loyal voter... A big claim with little sources to back it. Jacob Zumba ( talk) 21:16, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
I have recently uploaded this photograph of KC as a teenager by Herbert Lambert to Wikimedia Commons. Please use it if you think you can find a place for it in this article. Liam2520 14:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
John Berger was a very popular critic, but did he have any knowledge of art history?-- Ralfdetlef ( talk) 09:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)