Harvard Welcomes 'Civilization'

Kenneth Lord Clark, well-known art historian, spoke on "Iconophobia" yesterday at the Fogg Art Museum before a crowd of 250 graduate students, Fine Arts faculty, and guests.

Iconophobia is fear of images, and Clark, who produced and moderated the "Civilization" series for BBC, is thinking of writing a book on it.

Clark traced the beginning of Iconophobia to the second commandment prohibiting the creation of graven images. "People have continued to make images of living things in accord with the human instinct," Clark noted.

At that point, thunder descended from the skies outside.

Clark continued undaunted, however, tracing the history of iconophobia from Hebrew times through the Greek Orthodox rebellion and the Reformation to the present.

"Iconophobia is frequently the rejection by an unsettled society of the images of an established society." Clark said. "It has been associated with revolution and has frequently turned into vandalism."

Clark, who is the author of many books on art history including The Gothic Revival and The Nude, said that ours is an age of iconophobia, in which representational art is out and abstract art is in.

He said he expected the abstract period to end in about 50 years. "Representational art will reappear," he concluded, "although I shall not be around to see it."

Following the talk, the crowd adjourned upstairs to the Fogg Courtyard for cocktails.

The courtyard quickly filled with culturati. As Sydney J. Freedberg '36, professor of Fine Arts, intoned to a group of young ladies who had regrettably forgotten their Webster's, Seymour Slive, professor of Fine Arts, bemoaned what he felt amounted to a 30-year wage-price freeze at Harvard and mused about the next slow boat to Flanders.

Lord and Lady Clark sampled the Harvard Student Agencies' finest Brie and exotic liquors. Clark continued to expand on the lecture topic to hordes of admirers, but wearily confessed, "I'm too old to do research. I prefer to pick people's brains."

All available brains having been picked, the Clarks headed off to a private dinner arranged in their honor by the Fogg. Repeated efforts failed to turn up the menu, but the guest list was readily available.

Agnes Mongan, recently retired director of the Fogg, attended and was escorted by Daniel Robbins, its new director, John M. Rosenfield, chairman of the Fine Arts Department, and Perry T. Rathbone '33 director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, were also on the list