August 31, 2022

Winston Churchill’s Speech to the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, 30 April 1953

Finest Hour 194, Fourth Quarter 2021

Page 15

The arts are essential to any complete national life. The nation owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them. The country possesses in the Royal Academy an institution of power and reputation for the purpose of encouraging the arts of painting and sculpture. It would be disastrous if the control of this machine fell into the hands of any particular school of artistic thought, which like a dog in a manger would have little pleasure itself but would exclude all others.

The function of such an institution as the Royal Academy is to hold a middle course between tradition and innovation. Without tradition art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation it is a corpse. Innovation of course involves experiment. Experiments may or may not be fruitful. Certainly it is not the function of the Royal Academy to run wildly after novelty. There are many opportunities and many places for experimental artists to try their wings and it is not until the results of their experiments have won a certain measure of acceptance from the general agreement of qualified judges that the Royal Academy can be expected to give them its countenance….

Art and politics. They have two things in common. The first is the controversial difference of opinion between those engaged in them. The controversies in the field of art are at least as vigorous as those in politics. The second is the search for truth. Tireless and impartially successful.

About people who go in for novel forms of art. If they had a thorough grounding and have proved themselves the masters of line and colour they have a right to express themselves. But one views with some suspicion people who have had no sort of artistic training and go in for the most extraordinary performances in the hope of obtaining notoriety and even profit. It is a broad question whether any measure of regimentation is compatible with art. On the whole I find myself on the side of the disciplinarians. Of course one may go too far, but no large organization can long continue without a strong element of authority and respect for authority. There must be in any really healthy, effective body a sense of collective security.