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Arts and Ideas quotes from the rotunda of the If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. - John F Kennedy All my work is meant to say, "You may encounter defeats, but you must not be defeated." The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives: to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain. Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see the landscapes that would otherwise have remained unknown to us... Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.. You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish. All that remains of communities and civilizations, all that remains of their worth and dignity exists in the art they leave. A great poet, in writing himself, writes his time. It seems to me that the best art is political, and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time. SpiritSound Collection Back to Page 1 SpiritSound Home Page |