John F. Kennedy Quotes About Art
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Some of my colleagues who are criticized today for lack of forthright principles-or who are looked upon with scorn as compromising "politicians"-are simply engaged in the fine art of conciliating, balancing and interpreting the forces and factions of public opinion, an art essential to keeping our nation united and enabling our Government to function.
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There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was also the age of Shakespeare. And the New Frontier for which I campaign in public life, can also be a New Frontier for American art.
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If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
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Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people.
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Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline.
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Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color
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I see little more important to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.
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But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future.
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I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.
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There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.
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In free society art is not a weapon...Artists are not engineers of the soul.
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We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.
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Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then society severs the root of art.
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As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts. For art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. What freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and a spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society. I see of little more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.
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Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement. The artist... faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an offensive state.
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Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
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The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.
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I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty...an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.
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Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgement.
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John F. Kennedy
- Born: May 29, 1917
- Died: November 22, 1963
- Occupation: 35th U.S. President
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