The artist's role isn't to tell people how to feel, but reflect.
Interpretation
Artists mirror society and emotions rather than dictate feelings.
In this quote, John Lennon emphasizes that the primary function of an artist is to serve as a reflective medium for human experiences and emotions. Instead of imposing specific feelings on others, artists capture and present the essence of the world around them, allowing audiences to engage with their own emotions and interpretations.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in society, this quote could illustrate the purpose of artists during a gallery opening.
When I get older losing my hair many years from now. Will you still be sending me a Valentine. Birthday greetings, bottle of wine? If I'd been out till quarter to three would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four?
The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.
I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.
Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.
I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...Everyone else who has asked me that question over the last few years says. 'But what else have you been doing?' To which I say, 'Are you kidding?' Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves [of bread,] I felt like I had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten, I thought, Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?
Suffice to say that the theme (the WHAT of the movie) is going to determine the style (the HOW of the movie).
I am seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body's movement.
Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.
I am working, but when one has ceased to do seascape, it is the devil afterward - very difficult; it changes at every instant, and here the weather varies several times in the same day.
Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.
The important thing is not the camera but the eye.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.