Civilisation: The Worship of Nature
Cast & Crew
Michael Gill
Kenneth Clark
C. Day Lewis
Kenneth Clark
Joe Cooksey
Roger Crittenden
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Sir Kenneth Clark's history of Western civilization turns to the 18th and 19th centuries, when a belief in the divinity of nature replaced Christianity as the chief creative force. Rousseau's philosophy asserted the innocence and beauty of both nature and natural man. Goethe's view of nature contained a pre-Darwinian concept of evolution, while Coleridge took a mystical and Wordsworth a religious approach in their poems. English painting expressed the desire for the simple life in the art of Constable and Turner. Ruskin studied nature to prove that it illustrated moral law. French artists less interested in the picturesque, painted either naturalistic landscapes or, influenced by Turner's emphasis on pure color, depicted the dominance of light in any setting. The Impressionism of Renoir and Monet split into several schools after only 20 years, but its influence on modern art is undeniable. Monet's final attempts to immerse himself totally in nature symbolized the need that man felt for rebirth through the love of nature.
Crew
Kenneth Clark
Joe Cooksey
Roger Crittenden
Michael Shah Dayan
Colin Deehan
A. A. Englander
Michael Gill
Dave Griffiths
Basil Harris
Peter Heelas
Maggie Houston
Carol Jones
June Leech
Kenneth Macmillan
Peter Montagnon
Bill Paget
Jesse Palmer
Jack Probert
John Taylor
Ann Turner
Allan Tyrer
Malcolm Webberley
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Location scenes filmed in Switzerland and England. First shown in Great Britain on May 5, 1969 on BBC 2; the 11th in Sir Kenneth Clark's series on the history of Western civilization. C. Day Lewis reads from the poetry of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Hymn Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chaumouni," and William Collins' "Ode to Evening."
