A Research On Kenneth Clark's Theory Of Art History

Kenneth Clark(1903-1983)is one of the most famous art historians in the 20th century,successively holding the posts of the curator of National Gallery,Slade Professor in Oxford and president of Arts Council.Confronted with the radical changes and inner contradictions in society,ideology and art of the western world in the 20th century,Clark responds to them with his academic practices.In the 20th century,the western intellectuals began to reflect on and criticize the instrumental reason and its consequences established by enlightened modernity,proposing various plans of cultural modernity.A kind of classical modernity is contained in Clark's thought with the core idea of "lWholeness" in western classical tradition and the concept of;"Universal Man" in the Humanist tradition.Clark makes modern conversion of these classical thoughts based on the context of modernity.He emphasizes the organic integrity of social life,the continuity of human history and the completeness of human being and art experience to overcome the differentiation,fracture and conflicts caused by enlightened modernity.The classical modernity is different from the radical modernity proposed by Max Weber and Frankfurt School,which have a great impact on modernism art and avant-garde.However,the radical modernity causes a gap between art and social life,weakens the rich connotation of aesthetic experience and the intervention of art into s ociety,and cut the bond with western cultural tradition.Today when we review the modernity,the classical modernity represented by Clark is more historically inspiring.Clark's research on art history is based on the classical modernity.For the theory of art history,Clark reflects on the formalism art history which is dominant in the 20th century and its limitations in an all-round way,with an effort to restore the cultural history and classical tradition established by Jacob Burckhardt and Aby Warburg.By studying the art history,Clark expounds the preservation,dissemination and conversion of classical tradition through space and time,reaffirming the unity and historical continuity of European cultural traditions.In the dimension of space,Clark tries to clarify the dialectical connotation of the concept of "Provincialism" since modern age,elucidating the impact of the dissemination of classical cultural heritage on western art history,reflecting on the nationalism implicit in the narration of art history,and rebuilding the traditional cultural awareness of Pan-Europe.In the dimension of time,Clark re-examines the value of classical cultural heritage,reorganizes the historical evolvement of classical tradition through the research on the history of nude and landscape painting,which not only responds to the historical discontinuity theory in various forms in art history but also dissects the subversive reform of classical tradition brought about by modernism,namely true crisis of classical tradition.Clark is the first art historian who studies the history of nude and landscape painting in an all-round way in western art history.Clark believes that the history of nude embodies the transmission and changes of classical tradition.Though since the Renaissance,nude art has diversified into secularization,it doesn't get rid of classical tradition.However,the tradition undergoes racial reform in the works of modernism,reflecting the crisis of classical tradition.Clark's study of landscape painting trace the relationship between landscape painting and classical tradition and its role in the birth of modernism,on the other hand,he shows us the changing natural concepts in western culture through the landscape painting.We should attach importance to the concept of"Picturesque" and the awareness of meteorological crisis in landscape painting when the crisis in ecological condition becomes more severe and the thought of ecological aesthetics needs to be rebuilt.