Edgar Wind was invited by the BBC to deliver its Reith Lectures in 1960. This series of radio lectures was inaugurated in 1948 to mark the contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the BBC's first director-general. Wind chose as his topic “Art and Anarchy”.
Edgar Marcel Wind |
Reith Lectures, 1960 The Reith Lectures were/are usually delivered live. Their tight format (28 minutes precisely) impeded Wind’s habitual free-flowing lecture-style, delivered with few notes. Instead, he was required to speak from a pre-written text. Lasting precisely 28 minutes each, Wind used these lectures as the basis of his highly influential book, Art and Anarchy, subsequently published in 1963. Each lecture evolved into one chapter of the published work: Of the three surviving lectures (lectures 4, 5 and 6), the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library holds a digital copy of Art and the Will. |