Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence

I concur in general with the positive reviews written herein. As a frequent visitor to Florence it was a particularly interesting read. Also as a student resident for a 2-week period a few years ago I had the occasion on most days to walk via Ponte Santa Trinita' from Costa San Giorgio to school near SMN. Hard to imagine wading instead. Of particular interest was reading about, and trying to imagine, removing a painting from its wood base starting at the back side. If you know Florence and its art I think you will enjoy this book.

When I was nine years old I saw pictures in the old Life magazine of a terrible flood that had just devastated an Italian city I had never heard of: Florence. Although I knew nothing of the masterpieces that had been damaged or destroyed, I realized that the world had suffered a great loss. Eight years later, as a teenager making my first trip to Europe, I visited Florence and saw the massive recovery and restoration efforts still underway. Florence meant more to me then, as I had just studied the Renaissance, and in the years since I have come to realize how important that rather small Italian city has been to the world's artistic, literary and spiritual development. Robert Clark's Dark Water is an excellent history of the city of Florence through the centuries, culminating with the 1966 flood and the subsequent recovery. If Clark had only focused on 1966 and afterwards, this would still be an important work, but Dark Water is still more valuable because Clark has produced a fine history of the city, beginning with Dante, proceeding through the Renaissance, and on through to the present. He provides many excellent short biographies of the creative spirits associated with Florence, ranging from Leonardo and Michelangelo through to David Lees and Bernard Berenson. His accounts of Florence's participation in and witnessing of hundreds of years of history are also fascinating, particularly his coverage of the World War II period and the efforts made to preserve the city's treasures in the middle of massive conflict. His description of the 1966 flood and its aftermath is a gripping almost minute by minute account, and again features many hitherto unknown heroes of the recovery effort. It would have been nice to have illustrations of the many artworks mentioned in this work and portraits of the many heroes and heroines who figure in Florence's history, and the book badly needs an index as well, but these are minor flaws, particularly when one considers Clark's fine writing style and his ability to create an engrossing narrative.

Clark possesses an intimate knowledge of Florence and the Florentine and does a masterful job of describing the "sadness" of the losses of the masterpieces and the frustration of the restorers of them and the city itself.Ralph Alfieri

While this author gives a particlarly impressive account of the flood in Venice (1966) he does an absolutely fabulous job of exploring past floods, and then brings into perspective the creation of many of Venice's most influencial and memorable pieces of artwork. Clark explores each moment of this flood (while skillfully dropping in comparisons to previous floods) and the devistating impact the water had upon the works of art, and then the second half of the book carries the reader through the restoration, and preservation of those pieces. All in all, the authors facts are historically correct (an extensive bibliography documents each reference), he has a very talented way of presenting the story so that the reader is carried smoothly from event to event, never forgetting the past. Much praise for Robert Clark.

In addition to skillfully selecting especially interesting and informative events and facts, Robert Clark writes beautifully! This book is a particularly enjoyable read and much more than a history of the 1966 flood. Dark Water reads like a combination of history, novel, adventure, and an essay of profound personal reflection. The subtitle, Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces, is apt. This book is about much more than the 1966 disaster. In part, it even includes a look at Florence during WWII connecting the disparate artistic sensibilities of Mussolini, Hitler, and legendary art historians Bernard Berenson, and Frederick Hartt. To a greater extent, it relates a compelling, moment by moment, description of the flood with an emphasis on human interest--honestly, you'll feel like you're there. It introduces some of the complex issues of art restoration in ways that would make even my dog care about the subject. Finally, Dark Water is a very personal reflection. Clark introduces characters--the Arno itself becomes a living presence--who experience the flood firsthand, and he then weaves the common threads of their lives up to the present. He manages all of this by relating experiences; he is never didactic or pedantic. I was so impressed by Dark Waters I went looking up all the reviews I could find to see if my opinion was shared. All the reviews are glowing, but none of them does the book justice (and my comments here are certainly inadequate). I would have been satisfied simply reading the facts and stories Clark relates. However, this was so much of joy to read that I found myself stopping and rereading portions just to savor his prose and his insight--for example, "But the art in an artwork might not be located precisely where you thought it was. Perhaps it was just as much in the damage and decay as it was in the intact original. Perhaps it was in the gaps--in contemplating and tending those insults and injuries--that we find ourselves, by compassion; by bandaging, however imperfectly, those wounds. Art may be a species of faith, the assurance of things hoped for. It contains nothing so much as our wish that we persist." You will enjoy this.