Kenneth Clark

Born 1903 · Died 1983

From London, England, United Kingdom · Nationality: United Kingdom · Writes nonfiction

English art historian, museum director, and broadcaster

Quotes

“Evidently one cannot look for long at the Last Supper without ceasing to study it as a composition, and beginning to speak of it as a drama. It is the most literary of all great pictures, one of the few of which the effect may largely be conveyed — can even be enhanced — by description.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Leonardo is the Hamlet of art history whom each of us must recreate for himself.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“One musn’t overrate the culture of what used to be called “top people” before the wars. They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.”
Civilisation, Chapter 13
“It is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.”
Civilisation, Chapter 13
“The great artist takes what he needs.”
Civilisation, Chapter 5

Books by Kenneth Clark in the order they were published, from The Gothic Revival (1928) to The Art of Humanism (1981).