Letter to Artists Quotes

“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands.”
― Pope John Paul II, Letter to Artists

“What is the difference between “creator” and “craftsman”? The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothing—ex nihilo sui et subiecti, as the Latin puts it—and this, in the strict sense, is a mode of operation which belongs to the Almighty alone. The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning.”
― Pope John Paul II, Letter to Artists

“Those who perceive in themselves this kind of divine spark which is the artistic vocation [...] feel at the same time the obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in order to put it at the service of their neighbor and of humanity as a whole [...] Artists who are conscious of all this know too that they must labor without allowing themselves to be driven by the search for empty glory or the craving for cheap popularity. [...] There is therefore an ethic, even a “spirituality” of artistic service, which contributes in its way to the life and renewal of a people.”
― Pope John Paul II, Letter to Artists

“Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things. All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardor of the creative moment [...] is no more than a glimmer of the splendor which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.”
― Pope John Paul II, Letter to Artists