![“I am standing on the Pont des Arts in Paris. On the one side of the Seine is the harmonious, reasonable facade of the Institute of France, built as a college in about 1670. On the other bank is the Louvre, built continuously from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century: classical architecture at its most splendid and assured. Just visible upstream is the Cathedral of Notre Dame —not perhaps the most lovable of cathedrals, but the most rigorously intellectual façade in the whole of Gothic art. […]
What is civilisation? I do not know. I can’t define it in abstract terms —yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it: and I am looking at it now.”
- Kenneth Clark, Civilisation](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv90r5gyeK1qzy0ygo1_500.jpg)
“I am standing on the Pont des Arts in Paris. On the one side of the Seine is the harmonious, reasonable facade of the Institute of France, built as a college in about 1670. On the other bank is the Louvre, built continuously from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century: classical architecture at its most splendid and assured. Just visible upstream is the Cathedral of Notre Dame —not perhaps the most lovable of cathedrals, but the most rigorously intellectual façade in the whole of Gothic art. […]
What is civilisation? I do not know. I can’t define it in abstract terms —yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it: and I am looking at it now.”
- Kenneth Clark, Civilisation
(via crookedindifference)
