A friend and I were sharing our frustration at the way our beautiful city of London is becoming defaced by endless graffiti. We were travelling on the tube and passing by mile after mile of graffiti on walls, buildings and even private houses. It feels threatening and indeed probably is, as it is intended to be so. Much of it is a method of communicating the territorial areas of drug gangs.
How to manage not to feel utterly depressed about this, we asked ourselves? “Looking up,” my friend said to me, “has changed my perspective. Instead of getting depressed by the shabbiness of today’s Richmond I looked up one day and saw beautiful buildings and porticos, stained glass and statues, artwork and craftsmanship and suddenly I felt better.”
I know exactly what she means. It is too easy these days to get drawn down into the gutter rather than looking at the stars. Our news outlets headline all the ghastly tragedies and threats of our world. The television channels, streaming or terrestrial, show us all the darkest sides of human nature with violence and death. How I have been longing for something uplifting. Then I found it – rewatching the series Civilisation presented by Sir Kenneth Clark, which is, thank heaven, streaming on BBC iPlayer. I watched it with my parents, way back around 1970, and it was a weekly family ritual of appreciation of his knowledge, wisdom and perception and the incredible creativity of humankind.
Watching this series again has reminded me how important it is to seek the beauty in life and the beauty in human nature. In today’s world we get bombarded by misery and I have become increasingly aware of how the focus on wonder, art, beautiful music, craft and harmony is something we need to actively decide to focus on. We can’t be passive about this. It has to be a deliberate act and we may even need to plan it in our diaries in order to change habits and focus on what we personally find uplifting.
For it is such things that are indeed the ingredients of our civilisation. Watching Clark talk simply to camera about the beautiful artefacts he is discussing takes one into another world, out of the humdrum and into the transcendent. And it is all around us in this city as it is everywhere, and in nature. Even as I walk around Kew, I notice every Victorian terraced house has some beauty – maybe a stained-glass window, ceramic tiles around the front door, or intricate carving on a porch. In central London we have outstanding architecture, stunning churches and tranquil squares. Every city has something that has been crafted by human imagination and skill. We just have to remember to notice this!
This doesn’t take away completely my frustration at the way the graffiti is a reminder of the disrespect of our environment, nor that it must involve trespass and costs councils a fortune to clean it off, only for it to appear again the next night. And I wonder why it is that with so much CCTV these vandals can get away with it – for these are no Banksy-style artists. I still worry that there is a lack of respect for authority and basically far too many people, gangs and shoplifters, are sticking two fingers up at the police and politicians alike. But taking time out from all this refreshes mind, body and spirit.
So may I suggest you take a trip into the series Civilisation, or simply look up at the stars, or at what mankind has created with our endless ingenuity. Perhaps remind yourself of some exquisite music that lifts your spirit, visit a gallery or cathedral, or just sit quietly watching a sunset. There’s no need to do more than look and listen.
The philosophers of ancient times and the Renaissance knew that creating civilised individuals who contribute to the culture and society in which they live takes education. It seldom happens without a teacher or parent to open the eyes of a child to beauty, to open their ears to music and harmony, to demonstrate the art of civilised conversation and discussion, to develop good manners. I was shocked to read of secondary school pupils in Ipswich and beyond throwing scissors and chairs at their teachers, refusing to attend class and walking around in intimidating gangs. If young adults and children are left to learn how to behave by watching violent thrillers, tweeting, gaming or interacting on social media, it is not surprising that they are not learning these finer qualities of how we humans can interact with one another and the world in which we live. Who knows, there might be a Michelangelo, Mozart or Shakespeare among them if given the right inspiration.
I’m not pretending to have all this right myself – I get hooked into the negativity of the current state of our world and my surroundings like many of us do. But I just wanted to share how restorative I have found it to spend a few moments with Sir Kenneth Clark, to be reminded that we humans have created some extraordinarily beautiful works of art, music and craft and that our day is enhanced by noticing the beauty around us. Of course, we can’t do this unless we appreciate what there is that has been created, and value it. We have this amazing legacy that we can now access in person or online and I thank those who had the skill and talent to create these wonders, and the patrons who have made this possible. A world of beauty, buildings, music, art.
When life gets depressing, take a moment. Look up. Or find the series on iPlayer. We can still ask the police and politicians to act and yet know individually how to soothe our nerves, so it doesn’t all become too much!
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