European council of art: a new initiative to combine both fields and cultures in the pursuit of visionary goals.

摘要

"Visionary." A dangerous word - a positively in- flammatory word. And that's why I am so pleased about the initiative that I will now describe.There are, of course, various synonyms for "visionary" -synonyms of varying degrees of opprobrium. Futuristic, starry-eyed, deluded... you get the idea. But, as Shaw noted long ago (and as I quoted at the head of a past editorial, "All progress depends on the unreasonable man." So, what is a visionary to do? In rare cases, visionaries can further their goals without public support, either because substantial financing is not required or because it is already available. But far more often, the essential first step in demonstrating to the world that a crazy-sounding idea is in fact very sensible is to gather a sufficient cadre of advocates who think that one just might be right, and that it would be an awfully good thing if one were - "sufficient" being defined in terms of the supply of financial support for the achievement of proof of concept.