
The American Academy of Arts and Letters
The Academy president provides introductory remarks and presents honorary memberships to: Isaiah Berlin, Cecil Day Lewis, Sir Herbert Reed, Kenzo Tonge, Pierre Boulez, Cicely Veronica Wedgewood.
Next, he announces the newest members, of annual grants to members in arts, literature, music, special awards, two cash prizes and named prizes.
Intermission. Announcement of Thomson work, but it is not recorded on the tape.
Address by Jacob Bronowski on "The Witch of Imagination."
Presentation of awards; Theodore Roszak introduces and gives the gold medal to sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. Aaron Copland introduces and gives the gold medal to composer Virgil Thompson.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 151632
Municipal archives id: T2827
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
Associates and friends. Dr Johnson. Said that he knew only three books that he wished were home where. They were the Pilgrim's Progress Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. Many people think even these three just long enough. Be that as it may nobody ever waged an introductory speech longer I shall therefore be brief. Looking at the speeches of my predecessors as president of the academy I find that most of the make just two points first that all and casts are welcome and second that the Academy and institute stand for excellence in the arts. Very well you are almost cordially welcome. We stand for excellence. Benedict to tell you many dichotomy. But let me pause a second longer to say that I demur to one word in the second statement we do not merely to stand for excellence we battle for excellence for the arts do not occupy a quiet peaceful field they sway back and forth on a hard fought battle ground think was small and Congress with weapons if we'd of the academy and is to toot were trying to give you an assessment of the state of the arts and letters in our republic in this year one nine hundred sixty six we cannot do so no we not perspective only decades hence can that appraisal be attempted we can say however that evidences of abounding vigor do exist and one evidence is the fact that our American arts and letters were never more any battlefield than today. Is our music a static passage area of accepted canons never did the music of the ordered fashion and grading composer have to bow to a more fiercely against the young innovators who deride even Shostakovich as Or would happen is painting in a domain of serene harmony where all worshipped the Giants before Picasso and Marx or God our painters of one thousand nine hundred sixty six contemplating the canvases of one thousand nine hundred fifty exhale as little serenity as Ruskin did in contemplating WISTER. Sculpture surely that leads us into a land of classic peace and yet one of our own academy sculptors varying imposable dying there and a piece by Henry Moore was heard to snort I believe in secret art but I shall never never accept poorly art. And how many American poets accept the artistic ideas and ideals whole heartedly of as Ripon the energy of these bathhouse unless all history betrays us is a sign of health out of them will spring a greater are and today we can know what another impressive evidence of vigor on the artistic sea for in this May of one thousand nine hundred sixty six we can hail the emergence of the most powerful patron that practitioners of the arts and humanities in our land have yet found the government of the United States it will battle for us under longside us it is not a proper function of the Academy an institute to concern themselves with what Marianne Moore called the her wit and fife and drum of political events but we justly feel a deep concern for courses of National Action which affect the strength of the arts it is therefore right that we express our gratification that in the year just passed United States has at last fully taken the route that order lives through before it and has created national instrumentalities. For fostering all the arts and strengthening all of humanistic disciplines. We welcome this new ad hoc as astroids upon the battlefield we arrange ourselves alongside all other stronger for the advancement of art and culture in tendering our thanks to the three chiefs of state who have committed our government to a high and endowment of science art and leather. They are Dwight D. Eisenhower who appointed the first White House advisor of our new scientific efforts. John have Kennedy who brought to Washington the first White House advisor on the arts and laid plans to strengthen him by an advisory council with a statutory mesas and Lyndon B. Johnson who was marshalling his political cohorts pressed the Cultural Development Act through Congress and then last autumn in the Rose Garden of the White House sign with appropriate words in the presence of a great concourse of our intellectual leaders the new law creating the National Foundation on the arts and the humanities in the cultural history of the nation this crowning step may we hope invest the year just passed was a peculiar radians. And is now my privilege. To. Read to you the citations of the new honorary members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters chosen for their distinction from foreign lands I pause a moment before I begin them so let's wait and Prince be seated. We welcome today. We have proud to work from today six new honorary members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Four of them Britons one and France one from Japan at. First. Read the names off a bit of clay Isaiah Berlin. An intellectual historian and philosopher of the history of great riddance he is in addition I sue perp teacher who has inspired many students of history and philosophy in the United States as well as Europe he is above all a humanist bringing in the exceptionally subtle intelligence to bear not only on the most difficult points of scholarship but on the responsibilities of life in the contemporary world. We welcome also Pierre who lays who at forty eight. Who at forty is the most widely known widely respected and probably the most original of today's advanced composers his influences were over while his position of leadership is on question in his generation of service as an Orion. We welcome also sessile de Luce of Louis whose poetry has a duty to change the history of British literate you're. In the thirty's and later torn social orientation as professor of poetry and Oxford translator of Virgil critic S.A.'s and writer of detective fiction we honor ourselves by naming sessile Day Lewis and honorary member of. The elect also moved on or a membership Sir Herbert read for his distinguished achievement as poet that rarely heard it and art critic. It's election to honor a membership in the National Institute and American Academy will strengthen the cultural ties between Great Britain and the United States his writings both critical and imaginative broken new ground for the greed of spirit of our aims. We take special place are also in the election to our membership of Ken's Oton game whose work has borders grace and logic. In the field of architecture it stands at the conference of the great Japanese tradition and the best in Western thought asked a Master Architect time today as you Peters in the world. And finally we welcome to membership Cecily Veronica Wayne Swan and historian who has the sweep and energy of an artist she combines the actors it was Colorado with the birth of a painter and has brought up a turbulent and complicated period in western politics to life. I now asked a secretary of the Institute Mr Li on Intel to induct. The new members of the Institute. Once more heads it is my privilege to induct the newly elected members of the National Institute of Arts and Letters this year we elected to fill vacancies three members in the department of art. Four in the department of literature. And two in the Department of Music I will ask each one present today to rise as I read a brief identifying description time permitting only a mere one sentence statement that can do little justice and hardly pretends to describe the distinguished and honorable careers of our new members we rejoice in their accomplishments we welcome them warmly lead get. Us to and to lead Gach in the department of art painter of New Jersey and admired figure in American art who after studies both at home and abroad has exhibited internationally his variety his sensitivity expressed in non objective turners reflect a great technical virtuosity Jose Luis said thanks to all of architect of Massachusetts dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design since nine hundred fifty three who has designed embassies and museums office buildings libraries schools a native of Spain he came to this country in one nine hundred thirty nine and became a citizen in one nine hundred fifty one. And articulate architect he has in the margin of his blueprints written books on the heart of our cities their shape their chances for survival. Moses Sawyer. Hundred painter of New York a native of Russia a child of Manhattan studied in our midst as well as abroad his works are in many museums and private collections his large mural exit Cupid with his brother RAF ale may be seen in the United States Post Office in Philadelphia he's a painter of men and women he has indeed helped to reinvigorate the art of the portrait painter. In the department of literature Edward of the Thad Allen hundreds of New York playwright a hard working man of the theater who has shown in his plays both technical accomplishment and high seriousness his work reflects not only a preoccupation with religious symbolism but an ability to select personal and ideational conflicts at their points of greatest intensity John Kenneth Galbraith hundred economist and social philosopher of Massachusetts who has demonstrated that economics can be written as a branch of literature a Scottish Canadian he studied in Toronto later in California. And in England in the aftermath of the war he directed the strategic Strategic Bombing Survey he was ambassador to India in one thousand nine hundred sixty one his writings are original lucid forceful witty they have changed the way people think about the problems of modern society. Francis Stephen. Cohen to. Biographer a novelist of New York who has written the lives of slow bear and of Maupassant of James Jackson Jarvis and of appalling they're demonstrating that the life of art can be recreated as a car. And who has also written a novel is novels and mysteries and with bilingual leisure demand has succeeded in translating the ol and the Pussycat and to leave the blue a lot pussycat. He writes with authority and suavity was psychological insight and scholarship. William Styron. Been to. Novelist of Connecticut native of Virginia was awarded in one nine hundred fifty two their own fellowship Fellowship of the American Academy he's best known for his novel lie down in darkness and his novel The Long March is considered a small classic of our tied. While his set the house on fire has had an enormous success particularly abroad no novelist of his generation has more authority or offers more substantial promise of further accomplishment in the Department of Music. David Diamond hundred of Rochester New York he has written eight symphonies many chamber and church works and particularly saw that his preference seems to be for voice and piano but he takes delight in joining a noble too about soon and the piano or the voice in the flute to the harpsichord his musical style whether conservative or conservative radical is serious and sober filled with the warmth of humanity Stephen Walt thanks to an to composer of New York. A native of Germany he went to Israel where he taught theory and composition at the Palestine conservatory. He came to the United States in nineteen thirty eight his written choral and her lyrical works on themes from the Old Testament a ballet some that has been touted as concert His works are venturesome and and compromising. Let me now pause for one moment allow late and friends to find their seats. And these and produce having been seasoned. Mr George F. Kennedy the president of the Institute of the National Institute of Arts and Letters will of war and the Arts and Letters Bryant's nineteen hundred and sixty six. Thanks to the in the on. It is once again my. Agreeable duty to present the various annual grants and awards of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. I would like to reiterate for those of you who. Have not previously attended this annual ceremonial. That these awards and grants have not been solicited. They represent the spontaneous desire of the National Institute to recognize and to honor the high quality of work already performed and to encourage those who have performed it. To continue on their creative path confident of the respect and the interest of their colleagues in the arts. The task of. Selecting these award winners has been performed once more by three joint committees of the institute in the academy one for art under the chairmanship of Henry snuck in Berg. One for literature or under the joint chairmanship of John Hersey and Ralph Ellison. One for music under the chairmanship of Leon carefully. Before presenting these grants and awards I would like to express to the Chairman and members of these committees my own personal appreciation as president of the Institute and the appreciation that I know all our members feel to them for they painstaking and careful way in which they have performed this very difficult task of selection. I would like the first to proceed to the conferring of the several grants which the Institute makes annually to artists writers and composers moom it wishes particularly to honor and to encourage each of these grants carries with it the sum of cash sum of two thousand five hundred dollars beard. The first of the grants in the field of art goes to Rome our bearded born in Charlotte North Carolina nine hundred fourteen whose paintings reflect a thorough knowledge of the plastic elements pertaining to the graphic arts. His curiosity has led him into new plastic concepts and various media all was probing for and seeking out the mysteries of plastic forn. His work as lyrical Informa and its content is marked above all by compassion for the human experience. The old were OK. The next brand goes to mislead bond to code born in Providence Rhode Island in one nine hundred thirty one for the amazing manner in which she has created a high in the original kind of floating. Out of commonplace earthly materials in a series of mysterious and yet charming glimpses she has succeeded in anticipating the new or old to that modern science is revealing it and in this way she affirms again the sensitive artist's ability to relate with great accuracy to immediate environmental stimuli thanks to a wreath. This crown to glow goes to Carol Clore born an earl Arkansas in one nine hundred thirteen the neat the surface surrealism of Carol Cloris pictures One senses a subtle suggestion of mystery a feeling that things here are not quite so simple as they first appeared to be besides being a painter of the great scale old Mr Clore offers to the viewer subject matter that is often the. Tantalizingly Cryptical cryptic and and challenging. The Louisville. Jones. This ground goes through Ray Johnson. Redhead. Born in Detroit Michigan in one thousand twenty seven for his extraordinary extension of the art of call up through the use of original minute she arranged around the complex interrelationships of microscopic structures you'll see some of them later his dedication to such intimate relationships reveals the truth of all similar universal structures and adds a contemporary point of view to our understanding of eternal form. As the mark in the. Sea. He said Grant goes to him at sea on Martinelli sculptor born in West Hoboken New Jersey in one nine hundred thirteen forwork whose dominant qualities in inform our intuitive realm the baroque structure of his work frames an entire range of humanistic and visual valuers all rich in via T.V. in order and in inside. And the theory of. This ground goes to Karl shrugged born in Karlsruhe in Germany in one nine hundred twelve who views the world with excitement and paints accordingly. The upward and outward thrust of trees the blinding sweep of a winter storm the intense personality of a face all these he renders where they shore command. Or anything. Of. This ground goes to Richard Claude Zeman born in Buffalo New York in one nine hundred thirty three for the poetic depth of his vision of a tranquil resting nature and for his efforts in a Stiles fettered time to search in old springs for new sources. Were wreath of. Health and. I turn now to the grounds and literature are the first goes to William Alfred born in New York City in nineteen twenty three. Who in his works for the stage and in translations. Has transmitted in chimp epochal the mythical materials into a distinctly modern confrontations with the issues of fidelity expiation sacrifice ambition pride and even the hate that hides in love Mr L. review. This Grant goes to John Barth novelist born in Cambridge Maryland and nine hundred thirty. Who with such imaginative works as the floating opera the end of the road and especially the SOP weed factor has established himself as a virtual school of language a leading experimenter in comic form and one of the most learned of contemporary novelists. Ah. Just because. I have next to. A grant to James Dickey what born in Atlanta Georgia nine hundred twenty three. Who believing that poetry comes from life. Is able to give life to the language of poetry Thank you OK. This Grant goes to Shirley Hazzard born in Sydney Australia nine hundred thirty one. A writer whose fictions are marked by signal penetration and wit and Grace. And who remarkably contrived to unite a sophisticated approach to the scene she displays with a disarming tenderness toward those characters who have a claim upon it thank you OK. I'm nineteen twenty seven for his outstanding ability to write music that is at once theatrically effective strong in characterization and musically compelling and particularly in his opera Bartleby. Thank you overheard. Her. The other grant that I have to make here personally today in music is to John macabre Kirkland's born in St. This is to Josephine her first born in Sioux City Iowa in eight hundred ninety seven. Whose novels written in the one nine hundred thirty S. speak to us now and simple and rare voracity beyond the fashions of that decade or of ours. And whose later work not in fiction testifies to the same spirit and the same devoted skills thanks to the. Thank you were. This grant is to everyone honing born in Brooklyn New York in nine hundred nineteen. A poet whose self whose searching self interrogation raises some reverberating questions a translator with a personal insight into the idealism of the Spanish imagination a critical and pedagogical interpreter whose allegory is the world. Bank. And finally in the department of literature or I have a ground to meld them the toll and. This goes to Melvin B. Tolson poet born in Moberly Missouri in one thousand nine hundred four times men are of Langston Oklahoma professor of creative literature at Langston University. And point the Laureate by appointment since nine hundred forty seven. Of the Republic of Liberia his poetry of Negro life in America conceived on an epic scale is at once bitter and laughing colloquial and area dight jazzy and philosophical Thank you OK. There was one grant and literature war which I am unable to confirm personally today because the recipient is in Japan that is Gary Snyder born in San Francisco and nine hundred thirty a man who to use his own phrase gets high on poetry and mountains and who communicates this exhilaration as well as other more complex and troubling emotions with electronic power and intensity and I'm sorry he cannot be here turning to the the old. Turning to the grants and music the first of these goes today to Mr A shuffleboard. This is to Walter a suffering board born an S. and Germany in one nine hundred twenty seven. For his outstanding ability to write music that is at once theatrically effective strong in characterization and musically compelling and particularly in his opera Bartleby. Thank you OK. The other grant that I have to make here personally today in music is to John macabre Kirkland's born in St Louis and from Missouri in one nine hundred thirty five. In John Perkins music fragments a linear life and project dialed fragments are suddenly unimaginatively colored by intimate sun or a tease which give a new and original dimension to all his work. So. There are two grants in the field of music. Of which the recipients cannot be present today the first of these goes to Richard Hoffman born in Vienna Austria in one nine hundred twenty five. By a combination of elegance and structural command Richard Hoffman has achieved an admirable individual expressivity in a music which although complex is always a model of clarity and design. The second of these two. Grants to absentees goes to be we had hoped to have them with us today but unfortunately these was obliged to cancel at the last moment born in Philadelphia in one nine hundred twenty one. Because of his exciting and dynamic music full of rugged power and high originality developed over a number of years in response to an intensely personal vision uninfluenced by changing fashions I'm sorry these grand keys cannot be here and I wish them from a distance all of the best were. I turn now to the special awards done in. The American Academy of Arts and Letters confers each year are upon a young American writer of great promise. A fellowship designed to make possible one year of residence and travel abroad. The fellowship goes this year to Mr A.G.S. Donahue novelist born in Trenton New Jersey whose raw and tender work is distinguished by a love of good talk and by the scruples of a craftsman. The ball all. In one nine hundred fifty six Mrs Elizabeth aims a stablished in memory of her sister Marjorie Peabody weight and award in that name to be conferred annually on an older person for continuing achievement and integrity in his or her out. This award which is now in the amount of one thousand five hundred dollars goes in rotation to an artist a composer and a writer. This year it is the composer's turn and the recipient is a person who unfortunately again cannot be with us today Mr Harry part of California a composer has done conspicuously fine work in the exploration of new scales and new instruments. Were OK. We have next to cash prizes in the amount of two thousand dollars established by the Richard and Hindu Rosenthal foundation. Mr and Mrs Rosenthal are down with us today and I am happy to express to them our appreciation for these very constructive for constructive and imaginative rewards the only first of these two. Goes each year to a younger American painter of grace distinction who has not yet been accorded due recognition this year the painter as Howard hack of an Wyoming are born in China in Wyoming in one nine hundred thirty two although the Countess's of Howard hack are large there is none of the usual striving to make them more impressive by size alone there was a balance in the relationship of incidental objects to the wide expenses of pure color. To own. The second of the two Rosenthal awards goes each year to honor an American novel published during the preceding twelve months which though not a commercial success represents a considerable literary achievement but it gives me much pleasure to present this award today to Tom Cole born in Paterson New Jersey in one nine hundred thirty two. His arresting new talent has declared itself in a series of candid and fresh variations on a classic theme the exploration of the American consciousness through its re discovery of Europe Mr cold may indeed prove to be the Henry James of the Fullbright generation the old American. In one thousand twenty four friends of the poet Russell longing lawns established an award in his memory to be granted periodic Bladud to an English or American poet. Not as a prize but as a recognition of value and preferably a value not widely recognized this award goes to day to William Meredith born in New York City in one thousand nineteen whose poems display a double intelligence that of the mind and that of the heart he has courageously explored various aspects of the human condition and has set down his findings with sensitivity and skill. I have a very special personal debt to acknowledge to Mr Meredith as the talented and inspiring teacher of one of my own daughters a teacher from whose insights not only the daughter but indirectly her father who needed to even more have been the beneficiary of the oath of the oath. Finally we have the Arnold W. runner Memorial Prize which goes annually to an architect who has made a distinguished contribution to architecture as an art is to do. The prize goes this year to Romaldo Giurgola born in Rome Italy in one nine hundred twenty. He serves the spirit of architecture in his works which have the qualities of an emerging as that a quarter. His comp compositions of which you will see. Photographs and plans in the exhibit afterwards express the variables of humaneness. Thank you O.E.P. to open. So much for the prizes and the awards I would like to make one brief announcement that might be of interest to our guests on this occasion I think the members of the Institute are all aware of this. The president of the Academy has already mentioned the importance. In the lives of the academy and the Institute of the entry of the government into the field of the further into the creative arts. To which both of these sister institutions are committed by their long standing congressional charters. I am happy to report that the National Institute of Arts and Letters has already been able to cooperate with the National Arts Council on one program a program designed to make possible next year sabbatical leaves for a number of people active in the creative arts who have been teaching in educational institutions and who need a respite from teaching duties in order to get on with their creative work it does given a satisfaction to be able to make this contribution we hope it will be the first of many opportunities that we will we shall have to collaborate with the National Council of the arts in our common purpose and dedication. We pause now for a ten minute. Intermission and I beg you to be prompt in your seats. Nine and one half minutes hence. And three. Hour nine and one half minutes have now expired. We have a special pleasure but for us. It has been a special pleasure to listen to the composition of Mr Virgil Thompson and now I have the special pleasure of listening to the forty fifth annual Rush feels at various year after year the American Academy of Arts and Letters is proud to bring upon this platform a figure of international renown to address him selfe to a subject of general and worldwide interest we have had here a succession of citizens of the world. All who have listened here to such man as Robert Frost and say your Salvador to me that my diary AGA I should say Don Salvador and him are out of her E.M. Forster have been aware that we have had a very unusual experience indeed today gave we listen to a man who was much a citizen of the world as could be found on this planet. Born in Poland or in what is a quayside land a. Half Poland after Russia a city of logs educated mainly in great President Bartlet in other countries. A man of distinction in science. In letters. In other fields as well. Our orator today. Is known as. An author of one of the principal works on the poet William Blake. He is known as a man who has done as much as anybody living. Not accepting Mr Z. piece no to identify him the difficulties of reconciling the study of silence with the study of the arts in the humanities. He is proud of the fact that as he says any studies of break he has demonstrated that William Blake was not only a great mystic as everybody sees at once but was a master of common sense but he is equally proud that in these studies of Einstein he has demonstrated not only that Einstein was a master of science and common sense but a great mystic as well he has risen largely on many fields we know him in California for his identification with the sock foundation we know i'm as a man who sort chimps associates himself with the great libraries in California for further study in literature and art as well as in science we know him as the author of important books one of which I particularly commend to you. You will wish to read after her innocent dress today at least one of Mr Arnaout skis books and ice recommend to you particularly the one I hold the identity of man just me special pleasure to introduce to you today for the forty fifth plan you all brushed me on her dress Dr J. K. of California thousand to more. I have Corps the address which I'm honored to give the each of imagination. For three thousand years of Perth have been and chomped and moved at perplexed by the power of the imagination. In twenty minutes this afternoon I am ha the lackey to do more than lift one of the core that mystery. But I would like to lift for you a very critical call. I am going to ask the question. What goes on in the mind when we imagine. You will hear of me the one on the phone to this question is fatty specific which is to say that we can. Describe the working of the imagination. And when we describe it as I hope to show. It becomes plain that the imagination is specifically human. Indeed that imagination is the specifically human. Certainly to imagine is the characteristic not merely of the poet's mind not merely of the painters not merely of the scientists it is characteristic of the mind of man. Might stress in this on the word human. Implies that there is a clear difference between the action. In this respect and those of animals. So I will start with the classical occurred. About Animals and. Which was performed by a man called War hunt in Chicago in one thousand nine hundred ten and about that date I would just remind you that it was the period where the new work parking lot had just. Set the minds of scientists of God with the success. Of had first announced his new work. On forming and changing the we flex behavior of dogs in nineteen hundred and three and he had won the Nobel Prize in one thousand have been for to be fair for the work. Well how to. Trade some dogs and other at will. He train to escape from it. Down any one off week time. The signal to this cake was that a light went on over that one and the dark where with whom that shows the lighted tunnel. Got out and was rewarded with food. But once he had formed that conditioned reflex. Hunter added to it a quite new and much different idea. He gave the experiment a new image quite literally the dimension of time now he no longer let the dog go to the lighted tunnel at once instead he put out the light and kept the darkness waiting. By the time that he let him go the dog had to remember was over which all there had been a light. In this way Hunter timed how long an animal can remember where he has last seen a signal light tunes and a skate and when Ward but. Now you wouldn't think a moment to guess how our dogs of measurement. I will. Fall. For just as long. As a darkened room. Which is now. The results were and they continue to be stale. A dark or wet forgets which one of the tunnels has been lit up within a matter of seconds. In Hunter's experiment to say at most. If you want such an animal to do much better than this you must make the task much simpler You must give him only two tunnels to choose from. Even so the best that any of hundred six animals was able to do was that one of the male dogs who remember the light on some occasions for a long while. Now I'm not quoting these times as if they were exact and universal or not. Hundreds experiments more than fifty years old now had many folks that were too few animals that were not there well chosen is a live one dark biology dog lives in the universe of no and all our lives should you submit an experiment with animals in these in the bottom conditions in the cages with tall. And of course the primate him and he's better than this and so. But when all these provisos have been made the facts are still stuck on and characteristic an animal cannot recall a signal from the past for even new direction of the time that a man can for even a minute fraction of the time that a child can. Hunter made comfortable tests with six children and of course they all did new activities while in this Indeed I can summarize that she even factoring the story a little girl with the end of an hour way being constantly disturb care on this and. Said if you could talk to the. There is a striking and basic difference between a man's ability to imagine something that he saw or experience and then animals take it and indeed in the yes the diff past in the last five years or so we really even know what part of the where response on this ability. That of the think parts of the brain whose evolution is less than a million years oh the path of his response above the frontal lobe. You wouldn't know because we are literally Hisle we are literally. Now why is it that an animal falls short of our ability. We give a clue to the answer I think when hundred tells us how most of us animals tried to make. A literal. Most of them. Decided which of three doors had been alive. Simply by allowing them down and keeping their head pointed at the door. This was their discipline to just hold as it were in their conscience some symbolism. By which they could attach themselves to the past and therefore organize themselves for the future and in the case of the dogs for instance Hunter we count that this bunch on a dog moved his head ever so slightly. Before then he would. Follow and. And of course you yourself know from the fact that some dogs are quick to point out of character with the way in which a dog has the scent of an animal and. The animal points its head. In the gesture that is a very. Kind of symbolic content. There is to my mind of primitive imagery in this act. How else can a dark mark and this is where the name one of three tunnels when he has no such word. As there. Or one to do with. The gesture of attention and which. Is the only symbolic device that the doc commands to hold on to the past and thereby to direct himself into the future. I do the work to imagine a mode when I described. And now I have some ground for giving it a meaning. To imagine means to make images and to move them about inside one's head in. When you and I recall the past we imagine it in this direct and practical sense. The truth of the puts the human mind ahead of the animal is imagery. Ass memory doesn't octomom the preoccupation that it does in animals and it lasts immensely longer because we fix it in images or our substitute symbols. And with the same symbolic for Cabul we spell out the future not one. But many future of some which when they were at. The images play out for us events which are not present to our senses and thereby the past and create a few truck or that ones by contrast by the lack of symbolic ideas for their video De Mint tree poverty in animals cuts off the animal from the past and the future of life so that the adult in the literally imprisoned in its present. Of all the distinction between man and animal. The characteristic good which makes us human is the power to work with symbolic of. The gift of imagination. Now you must allow me to or swerve aside from science for a moment to say that this is really a very remarkable and of the four five. When Philip sit in fifteen hundred eighty defended poets and ordered a conventional thing cause from the Puritan charge that there are lines. He said that a make up must imagine things that are. Halfway between Sydney and us where you said what is now. Was one. Man. And all those who knew lack of us things the courage the about the imagination and its distinction from the mechanical fancy come back again to this central idea what code would call the imagination. Now we see that they were right and that they were precisely right the human gift is the gift of imagination and that is not just a literal word. Nor. Is it just. It is I would paint characteristically human almost everything that we do that is worth doing is done in the first place in the mind's eye. The richness of human life is that we have many lives we live the events that do not. As vividly as the events that do and define a case. Of powers and death. That is the price that you pay for not being a cat and being confined to. Literature is a life to us because we live in images but so is the mind so is chess. The lines of play that we force seek and trial our heads and dismiss ours much part of the game of chess as the that actually made. John Keats said that the better it is sweeter and every fellow for order will of course a member sadly that the combinations that you. And that are never played. But. I make this point to a mind to insistently that imagination is the manipulation of images in one's head and that the rational manipulation belongs to that as a weathers the literary and artistic manipulation. When a chant begin to play imaginary games with things that stead in the. Book the pinafore that from the earth or the boy nor for the doctor when a child begins to play imaginary games with things that stand for other things he enters the gateway. And the fantasy at one and the same time because the human reason discovers new relations. By induction not by deduction and that's a form of imagination. Sydney and plague and code which were not learned. By imagination. One hundred did so too only of a had an Orthodox and imaginative mind would have asked and those questions and could have conceived experiments in an age which was dominated by the we flex of. Love and which was just getting ready for the behavior. Of what's let me find a spectacular example for you from. What is the most famous experiment that you heard. Since. If I have to make a guess I guess this is the experiment which Galileo is said to have made in Philip's in his lifetime in peace of about fifty nine when said to drop two cannonballs from the leading. Light one and on the large heavy one in order to test the authority of asked for a quiet. Now ask in advance that for the lark on the streets the growth of the lucky one. There we say as a man in the modern woman a man after our own hearts he insisted on questioning the authority. Of our stuff and Aquinas and seeing with his own eyes whether as they said the heavy bore would reach the ground before the light. But see him is also invention. Getting there didn't challenge the authority of our stuff and he did look hard at his mechanics but the eye of the galley and there was the mind's eye he did not drop of the Tower of Pisa and if he had done so he would have gotten very palpable. Instead Galileo made in the Imagine experiment in his head. He describes the experiment in the famous dialogue of the great world system which was published in sixteen thirty two for which the Inquisition challenged him that worked for him on the team in sixteen thirty three and which remained on the index. Of the holy office for two hundred years. I propose to quote the experiment Galileo imagined much as he described. Suppose said Galileo that you dropped thrilling call from a high tower. Plainly said Galileo they are all done by hand after all what distinguished one in the long and on the famous principle that we are not called principle of the different but which in that there was called the principle of poor dense ass not because poor devils and the King of it because he was an expert in mechanics who invented this argument and thought Douglas went on the stand on that principle said Guy Larry got the equal sign that neither you nor needing help along on the go to get as ground that now suppose I'm drawing two balls by the small. Findus most in this way. Can you define a gradual time now as to the time you. Will sign a long it's a long thing. The truth all will see the old side I've heard all the world at the ground the same moment. I'll grant you that double trailer. Here. Now I find missing. In the presence of Evan's daughter I think Donna done a good scientist and met a lot with all that knowledge about being out when you please please. This argument on all I just think it's a much more wonderful art when they go. On. But I want to draw your attention to the fact that it costs nothing comes close. To the scene nature of course has shown all and how do you handle Gail a real person. The name of. The parish where I had been nothing yes there are other peckish just don't need God tackling but he's not on this the see my results. The argument is persuade. The argument is suggestive The argument is generally in a world it is met by the nature of the it's not conclusive. It can't be settled without an experiment because nothing can measure. Can't be all I wanted or experience. The test of imagining experience but then that's true of literature. Of physics. In science the imaginary experiment is tested in the end by confronting it with physics. And in literature the imaginative conception is tested by confronting human. The superficial speculation in science is dismissed because it's found to fall of physical nature and the shallow work of art and soon discarded because it's found to be untrue to our own. Story. Let me tell you that when L.-O. Wheeler Wilcox. Most of the was fortunate enough never to. Die and in one thousand nine hundred ninety one The Times of London said solemnly that more people were weeding her versus that. Yet in a few hours work was did it had been buried by its emotion and its trivial notice of thought which is to say that it had been proved as to the new man and say listening. I was for two of them all in here. So I doubt if there is much truth here between science and the arts the imagination is not much more free and not much this week in one than the other. Or great scientists have used their imagination freely and let it drive them to outrageous conclusions without crying hot I'm stunned fiddled with the match. From the time that he was a small boy and by the way it was wonderfully ignored the fact that he was a with time and then. For example. When you heard the first of his beautiful papers on the random movement of atoms in nineteen hundred and five he had never heard of a move which could be seen in any bottles and that. He was sixteen when he invented the powered office that he was all of that lost in the third were to and it barked much larger in his mind than the experiment of Michelson and Morley which that said every other purposes. All his life Einstein love to make up teasing puzzles like Galileo's about lift and the effect of gravity and they contained the number of the problems of general relativity on which he was working. Indeed it could not be. Let me restate my theme the power that man has over nature in himself and that of the dog lacks lives in his commom of imaginary experience he and the other as the. Which fixed the past and play with the future possible and impossible the symbol is the tool which gives man his power and is the same to him whether the symbols are images or words mathematical signs or chess pieces and the symbols have a weeks and roundness that goes beyond their lives to all practical meaning they are there which concepts under which the mind was many particulars into one name and many instances into one generalizing. When a man says left and right. He is not only this the seeing the dog looking for the life of been. He is sitting in train all those shifts of meaning the overtones and the ambiguity is between. And adroit and dextrous between this and the sense of right when a man counts one two three he is not only doing mathematics he is on the path to the mysticism of time. And true of us and Copernicus and Kepler to the Trinity and the science of the search and indeed the great mystic books of people like John Donna who are not on the memory. Turn out in India to be entirely quit we take. Them to die when your mind. I've described the imagination is the faculty to make images and to move them about inside one's head in lieu of entrance this is the fact that specifically humans and it's the common root from which science and literature but spring and grow and flourish together because they do. Languish together the great ages of science are great ages of art because in them powerful minds have taken from one another breathless and he go to pick on without asking too nicely whether they ought to tie their magination for. Granted they aren't Shakespeare who were born the same grew into greatness together when Galileo was looking at estate through his telescope at the moon Shakespeare was writing The Tempest and for your it was in a phone from Kepler to Ruben's and from the first table of logarithms by John to the Authorized Version of the bottle. Let me end with the last and spirited example of a common story of the sun. Because it's a smart sure life today as it was three hundred years ago. What I have in mind is man's. Lot and preferably. I don't displace you as a high side and. On the contrary I think we have more important discoveries to make here on. The way beckoning on the whole in service of them. Yet I am in the world. Yet I must not you must not belittle the fascination that that I spoke. Of the imagination of men long before throughout to our television screens to what Tom asked for no less. Polluted and. I we all stirred and Ben Jonson wrote about it even before the days of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and science fiction. The seventeenth century was hitting with a new dreams and fables about voyages to the moon Kepler or one full of deep scientific ideas. Unhappily it suggested that someone could fly. As a result of which kept us mother was accused of witchcraft and he never published a book. In England. Eight years after Kepler's death Francis got hurt the most while the. Book about a journey to the moon the man in the moon and the astronomer John Wilkins were equally why but nerd book called The discovery of a new world. All this was a few years four years to be exact. Before I said Norton was and it was all in his head that day and sixteen sixty six. We are in a sense in the book. When he sat in his mother's car a young man of twenty three and thought about the gravity. This was how he came to conceive that brilliant image about which he spoke to his dying day that the moon is like a bore which just been thrown so far that fourth exactly as far as the rise. Of the way around and then he goes around because we are happens to be. Newton calculated how long in that case the moon would take to four around the earth. If gravity of Beethoven or first square and as he says in the famous phrase he used I found them to it we've pretty near be found that under that hypothesis the moon thirty like a ball would take twenty years. In that telling figure on. The imagination that day with. It did not harm. All of the imagination and. We shall hear an echo of that harmony on the day when we land on the moon because that will not be an image a technical but an imaginative triumph the just back just to this extraordinary feature of the seventeenth century the voyages to the moon the beginning of modern science and literature both. All great acts of imagination are like this in the arts and in science and convince us because somehow they feel out reality with a deep a sense of. Us. We start with a look at what has led under wild want to three and before we know how it happened the words and the numbers that conspire to make and match within nature we catching them sold the patio. And that as while. For the Thier the old. Dr. You cast such a spell were us that it was with reluctance that I arose to speak into this microphone. Wasn't it you could have continued. We all know what Shakespeare told us the imagination of support bought in Forth. We have listened to a scientist who was also a poet a poet who was all who are scientists and we can understand why with this combination of faculties he could explain. Why I understand was a master of rationalism and at the same time a great mystic and why make it was a great mystic and at the same time a master of rationalism. For a further understanding. Of the ideas thoughts the imaginative reach of the I am just poet who has just spoken to us I commend to you again his book The identity of man. Which is but one of several books that I might commend to you. And now we turn to the presentation of the gold medal. For sculpture. Which would be given to Mr Jacques shock Lipschitz by Mr Theodore Russia. Mr Rose. Thank you Owen whom we are privileged to honor today is one of the acknowledge masters of our time he made his first appearance on a world stage in the early part of the century with a pristine and sent a leading geometry. That revealed a unique and come vision mark as it was by an architectonic stance it subsequently Gabe arrives to a new definition of form that changes the course of sculpture and is now part of history. To the young Lipschitz Cubism was more than a formal discipline it suggested a language of endless variation whose protein energy soon was the birth beyond its own boundary. His heroic Prometheus years of nineteen thirty seven already revealed a master at work whose lofty idiom ushered in a succession of works both formidable and prophetic. It would seem that the need to reconcile the classic and borrow the lay at the very root of his personality shaping an image that could fuse and transform an object with plastic power. And poetic allusion to the unsettling experience of coming to America during the war. Affected many expatriated artists adversely. But Jock Lipschitz work did not suffer by such dislocation on the contrary he welcomed his newly discovered community and was able to expand upon his inner resources with fresh vigor and commitment. To a man like Lipshitz. Who is naturally given to our regular musing and historic introspection. That is probably no more surprising to be born once than twice his power of rebirth is ask any magic as the expression of his mother and child that reenacts the sense of Greek tragedy were in the individual symbol invokes collective meaning and gives rise to an outpouring of ideas and experiences in a mysterious process of regeneration. Born to tradition nurtured by revolution he made just the fire Billy regard himself as an unremitting Cuba's. Yet one is nevertheless struck by the abundance of natural formless and emotional intensity that Jack Lipschitz was able to harvest from the seed of a Q. What would ordinarily be regarded as a paradox is but an index to a broader and probing sensibility not a gift to was in his measure of life and manner. In a seemingly endless procession of monumental works. It was our great good fortune that Jack Lipschitz elected to live and work in our midst his sculpture has influenced a whole generation of artists and has left an indelible mark upon the vast panorama of American life and thought we are celebrating a unique moment and I am personally privileged and honored to extend to him. In the name of our institution as highest award. Thank. You my dear others are. Coming from you. To deliver with too much about my marriage as I know as Elizabeth to say you. Accept. This award. With great you mean. I don't have any great merits since my childhood I had a kind of feel each for sculpture and. I try to satisfy this each by Irena and shine. I had a more rainy days and shiny. And. I am happy to still to be a life and to lead into some marvelous country which gave me the shelter. A bit I have to make a confession. I don't like medals. Were with. I have a few of them and I always sing that if I put Zim all and we ever will stop to be a human being and become some kind of fair panel plea in that you really smell little bit with disavowed I don't consider as a medal. It is a kind of fic piece of approval which my colleagues to give to me from a lifetime of work and of cause that moves me mostly and a big of often. To go to all over college and leave the president to thank thank you. And wildly note of Mr Virgil Thompson's sometime in his crying during our reasoning or mission yet linger in our memory. We have the pleasure of the presentation of the gold medal of the academy to him by Mr Copeland and Mr Gold thank you. Very dull my friend. What we're doing here today is nothing more. Than what we did here ten years ago on this same platform under the same auspices. The only difference is that our roles are reversed. Now it's my turn and what a pleasure it is to present to you in the name of the institute an academy the gold medal awarded to a composer but once every five years one thought occurs to me that must immediately be said. And I can say it with the greatest assurance the gold medal will never be awarded to another composer who is remotely like you. Your musical or a bountiful and purposeful and various as it is is uniquely your own I continued to be delighted and intrigued by its many Felicity's just as I was when first you played your early compositions for me in the Paris of the mid twenty's even then some forty years ago a Thompson score proclaimed American virtues directors of statement and an independent aesthetic while the rest of us were intent on being considered a part of the so called of for a modern movement of the period you persisted in writing your own kind of music that startled us all by its plainness its humor it's alarming simplicity is and it's warm it wasn't until the thirty's and forty's However when performances of your to Gertrude Stein operas were given that we realized your full stature as composer for saints and three acts and the mother of us all still remain to stir the monuments in the brief story of American uproar. When it comes to setting English poetry or prose to music to everyone agrees that your ear is impeccable you dominate the language and the singer in a masterful way your many songs and choral works are marvels in that regard but your successes in the vocal field have tended to obscure your full range as composer of the symphonies and can certainly chamber music and ballet as film and theater scores piano and organ works all written in a musical language that spans the gamut from Baby simple harmonies to the far reaches of a twelve tone technique and fortunately for us your musical Wellsprings show no sign of drying up. In extolling your accomplishments as a composer I've chosen to leave aside your legendary career as prose writer and music critic and I might add as indefatigable worker in the cause of American music today we are you as a composer and wish to emphasize your unique qualities as an outstanding creative personality of your generation someday I venture to predict. The citizens of Kansas City will have the good sense to set up a plaque to honor their first composer Until then you must be content with this gold medal that we affectionately be stole upon you today THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Dear And. If this had been awarded me for criticism I could have said I did it with my little hatchet. But it seems to be force being some kind of fruit tree myself. Well I like that because it makes me vulnerable as is only natural to any youngster with a brand new axe. I like it for other reasons too not to the least of which. Is the way you have so warmly wrapped me up. Deserving or not I modestly pick them. Thank you. For. Our revels or rather our ceremonies now aren't.