"Early artists considered the human body, that forked radish, that defenseless starfish, a poor vehicle for the expression of energy, compared to the muscle-rippling bull and the streamlined antelope. Once more it was the Greeks, by their idealization of man, who turned the human body into an incarnation of energy, to us the most satisfying of all, for although it can never attain the uninhibited physical flow of the animal, its movements concern us more closely. Through art we can relive them in our own bodies, and achieve thereby that enhanced vitality which all thinkers on art, from Goethe to Berenson, have recognized as one of the chief sources of aesthetic pleasure."
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Ch. V: Energy
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Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark of Saltwood, OM, CH, KCB, FBA (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was an English art historian and director of London's National Gallery (1934–1945) who is remembered for his television series Civilisation first broadcast in 1969.
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