REAGAN ON ARTISTIC FREEDOM
President Ronald Reagan, presenting the National Medal of Arts: No one realizes the importance of freedom more than the artist, for only in the atmosphere of freedom can the arts flourish. In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations. Where there’s liberty, art succeeds. In the totalitarian societies of the world, all art is “officially approved.” It’s the expression not of the soul, but of the state. And state-sanctioned art is usually lowest-common-denominator art. Which is not to suggest that great artists who love the truth of art cannot be found in totalitarian states. Visit a prison; you’ll find a number of them. Their garrets are jail cells; their crime is that they refused to put their minds in chains and their souls in solitary. These artists may be unpersons, but all of them are heroes. I know you…
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