Most Popular Books by Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark''s sweeping narrative looks at how Western Europe evolved in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire, to produce the ideas, books, buildings, works of art and great individuals that make up our civilisation. The author takes us from Iona in the ninth century to France in the twelfth, from Florence to Urbino, from Germany to Rome, England, Holland and America. Against these historical backgrounds he sketches an extraordinary cast of characters -- the men and women who gave new energy to civilisation and expanded our understanding of the world and of ourselves. He also highlights the works of genius they produced -- in architecture, sculpture and painting, in philosophy, poetry and music, and in science and engineering, from Raphael''s School of Athens to the bridges of Brunel.

El presente libro tiene su semilla en la serie documental televisiva de extraordinario éxito en la que el eminente profesor, crítico e historiador del arte KENNETH CLARK expuso su visión de las grandes corrientes de avance de la conciencia europea y los momentos cruciales de su despliegue, desde la caída del Imperio Romano hasta la época contemporánea. El ensayo analiza los grandes logros de nuestra CIVILIZACIÓN en arquitectura, escultura y pintura, en filosofía, poesía y música, en ciencia y en ingeniería, a fin de subrayar sus nexos internos y su matriz común. En el prólogo especialmente escrito para esta edición española, el autor señala que su propósito no fue escribir una historia del arte en cuyo caso «España habría desempeñado un papel grande», sino esbozar una síntesis del nacimiento y desarrollo del espíritu europeo, en la que las referencias a las obras de arte, como materialización de los valores culturales y de las ideas y creencias de los hombres, resultan de todo punto imprescindibles.

Tiles are a beautiful form of ceramic that lend themselves to an extraordinary diversity of uses and treatments. In this outstanding overview, Kenneth Clark, a distinguished tile designer and maker, introduces readers to their creation, ornamentation, and use. Tile making using earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, and paper clay is fully described as are the decorative techniques, like painting, screen printing, and sgraffito. The work of leading tile designers is also examined, along with their approaches and applications. To complete the book, Clark offers practical information on the uses of tile, including floors, walls, roofs, fireplaces, murals, and swimming pools; details on how to repair tiles; and advice on how to protect and care for them. Written by an expert, and with 280 color photos, The Tile is sure to captivate anyone interested in learning or appreciating the skills of this age-old craft.

Are there huge differences in the ways in which we, the human race, go about living our lives? How is it the Warrior, whose profession is killing others, can say, "I shall dance"? Although we love life, we constantly and systematically end the lives of others through War or less-organized means. War is grandiose, yet horrible for its participants. Killing of others continues, independent of War. Perhaps the most prized of all human emotions is Love. We can use endearing terms such as "When God released Love, it was you." But do we nurture and care for Love as it deserves? While Love can be the highest experience of living, we steadily end the lives of others while clinging to life ourselves. Why? Perhaps this terrible knowledge is best expressed by the most beautiful language we have - that of poetry.

What is it like to dive in the murky depths of the ocean?How do you raise the wreck of a ship or aircraft?Here, Kenneth Clark relives his diving experiences from training in the 1950s, to being awarded the Gold Sub Aqua Medal by the Duke of Edinburgh.His achievements include helping raise the Gitana from Loch Rannoch in 1978. At the time, it was the heaviest wreck ever salvaged by amateur divers.

Numerous pen-and-ink drawings inspired by the sheep meadow just outside Moore''s studio and originally presented to the artist''s daughter are reproduced, portraying sheep in a natural environment with both charm and feeling

Abstract: In a laboratory setting, people viewed simple visual stimuli and chose the categories to which they belonged. A computer tracked people''s choices, confidence ratings, and response times (RTs) when either all alternatives available for a choice were reasonable or one alternative was very unlikely. While the objective probability of an alternative in a set being correct decreases with the introduction of another alternative, I expected that inclusion of an implausible alternative would increase confidence that the alternative chosen was correct. I further suspected that RT would be constant despite changes in the types of alternatives available. Accuracy, confidence, and RT were predominantly unchanged by manipulating alternatives in the choice set. This contradicted two of my hypotheses and the hypotheses of other investigators in this area of research. A final experiment focusing just on confidence obtained more contradictory results, suggesting that people process all combinations of alternatives in a set similarly.