HAT IS THE POINT history? Today, like the clergy in the nineteenth century, it seems fit only for heirs and spares and to while away the time until you snag a Royal. This wasn’t always the case, of course. It was only 50 years ago that John Berger’s smashed onto screens like a fist through canvas. And a few years before that when Kenneth Clark bestrode the glories of western civilisation, a colossus in herringbone tweed. Art history was then a serious business — taken seriously. No longer.
