Civilisations isn’t ‘dumbed down’ – it’s too intellectual

I have been faithfully watching Civilisations. It is not at all dumbed down. Indeed, the series suffers from the opposite fault. It is too intellectual — pressed into the service of its presenters’ theories rather than telling a story which the common viewer can follow and enjoy. One finds oneself excited by a particular idea — Mary Beard on the ‘lack of light’ which is often a feature of religious art, David Olusoga on the way that Vermeer never opens windows on the wider world, yet contains symptoms of empire — globes, rugs, a beaver hat — in his interiors. But then one doesn’t learn where it is all tending. The amazing thing about Kenneth Clark’s original Civilisation is how much those of us old enough to have seen it 50 years ago can remember of what we saw. Watching Civilisations, one suffers from cultural jet lag and so can remember little.

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