“The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.”

—  Dana Gioia

Commencement speech, Stanford University (2007-06-17)
Speeches and lectures

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts educ…" by Dana Gioia?
Dana Gioia photo
Dana Gioia 80
American writer 1950

Related quotes

Martin Firrell photo

“Art’s true purpose is to be human as opposed to some rarefied activity set away from real life. I think art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

Quoted in the documentary The Question Mark Inside broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts (30 October 2009).

Svetlana Alexievich photo

“What can art accomplish? The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being.”

Svetlana Alexievich (1948) Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer

Speech at the Nobel Banquet https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/alexievich-speech_en.html (10 December 2015)

“Society is basically not interested in art. Art has a purpose of its own.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Chinati: Judd’s Concretes Re-open http://adobeairstream.com/art/chinati-judds-concretes-re-open, AdobeAirstream.com, 9 October 2009
Attributed from posthumous publications

“If being an anti-art artist is difficult, being an anti-art art historian is a hard position indeed. His doctrinal revolutionism brings forth nothing new in art but reenacts upheavals on the symbolic plane of language. It provides the consoling belief that overthrows are occurring as in the past, that barriers to creation are being surmounted, and that art is pursuing a radical purpose, even if it is only the purpose of doing away with itself.”

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) American writer and art critic

Source: Art on the Edge, (1975), p. 260, "What's New: Ritual Revolution"

Aristotle photo

“Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“The arts objectify subjective reality, and subjectify outward experience of nature. Art education is the education of feeling, and a society that neglects it gives itself up to formless emotion. Bad art is corruption of feeling.”

Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985) American philosopher

Source: Philosophical Sketches (1962), Ch. 5, p. 94

“… "folk art" signifies the poetical, musical, and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are uneducated and not urbanized or industrialized. It is of the essence of this art that those who keep it in being are not only passively receptive, but normally are creative participants in the artistic activities, and yet do not stand out as individuals or claim any personal authorship of the productions. "Popular art" on the other hand is to be understood as artistic or quasi-artistic production for the demand of a half-educated public, generally urban and inclined to mass-behavior. In folk art, producers and consumers are hardly distinguished, and the boundary between them is always fluid; in the case of popular art, we find on the contrary an artistically uncreative, completely passive public, and professional production of artistic goods strictly in response to the demand for them. It is indeed a striking fact that folk art, especially folk-poetry, emerges from the ranks of those who enjoy it, whereas popular songs—the street-ballads and popular "hits"—derive from professionals belonging to and spiritually dependent upon the upper classes.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

Arnold Hauser (1985). The philosophy of art history. p. 279

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“The true purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Speech at Williamsburg College http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/eisenhower_citizenship_quotations.pdf (15 May 1953)
1950s

Albrecht Thaer photo

“Agriculture is a trade with the purpose… to produce profit or to gain money. The higher this benefit in the long run, the more complete this purpose is fulfilled.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

Thaer (1810) cited in: Martin Frielinghaus and Claus Dalchow. " Thaer 200 years at Möglin (Germany) http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/ed-06-08/010039833.pdf." in documentation.ird.fr. (2007): 259-267.
Opening sentence of Thaer's four-volume Grundsatze der rationellen Landwirthschaft (Principles of Efficient Agriculture, 1809-1812).

George Henry Lewes photo

“In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Context: In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure. A work of Art must of course indirectly appeal to the Intellect, and a work of Science will also indirectly appeal to the Feelings; nevertheless a poem on the stars and a treatise on astronomy have distinct aims and distinct methods. But having recognised the broadly-marked differences, we are called upon to ascertain the underlying resemblances. Logic and Imagination belong equally to both. It is only because men have been attracted by the differences that they have overlooked the not less important affinities.

Related topics