"A more rewarding approach to painting, in my opinion the only valid one, is to regard it as a deeply personal and private activity and to remember that even when the painter works directly for the public — when there is sufficient common ground to allow him to do so — the real merit of the work will depend on the personal vision of the artist and the work will only be truly understood if it is approached by each in the same spirit as the painter painted it. We must be willing to assume the same sort of responsibility and share the dilemma out of which the work was created in order to be able to feel with the artist. Since the deepest and truest dilemma, from which all good art springs, is the human condition we have every right to regard the needs of our own consciousness as the final court in judging the merit of a work of art, we have in fact a moral obligation to do so. This demands the precise honesty from the spectator as was required from the artist in making the painting. It is their common ground, the area within which communication can occur. Art in the end speaks to the secret soul of the individual and of the most secret sorrows. For this reason it is true that the development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development. ."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_Swift
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Patrick Swift
55 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Patrick Swift →
Related Quotes
"Not to paint is the highest ambition of the painter but God who gives the gift requires that it be honoured. It is in…"
"His work is full of the signs of those two cardinal sins from which (as Kafka pointed out) all the others spring: imp…"
"The Art of painting is itself an intensely personal activity… a picture is a unique and private event in the life of …"
"Art on the other hand speaks to us of resignation and rejoicing in reality, and does so through a transformation of o…"
"The development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development."
"Its life depends on the degree to which it is inhabited by mystery, speaks to us of the unknown."
"All art is probably erotic in its ultimate character, but painting more than anything else is a purely nervous erotic…"
"One who opens his eyes and sees. To be good at seeing. How difficult not to see anything but the visible. And nothing…"
"Metaphysics — what metaphysics do those trees have?"
"I believe when you bring, say, a plant into a room, everything in that room changes in relation to it. This tension —…"