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Quotes from Some Notes on Caravaggio — Patrick Swift

1927–1983 Ireland

← All quotes by Patrick Swift

5 quotes

But of course these pictures are not shocking; good painting never is.

Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

Its purpose is moral, that is, the evaluation of experience; in the deepest sense, the development of taste.

Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

They verge on the realm of the confession- hovering on that vital line between the simply revelatory and consequently vulgar, and the honest statement that is moral and consequently dignified.

Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

His work is full of the signs of those two cardinal sins from which (as Kafka pointed out) all the others spring: impatience and laziness. The work of every artist is conditioned by the way in which he resists or yields to these temptations.

Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

Perhaps this is the great weakness of all criticism, that it tends to take facts derived from the examination of unimportant works and applies them in making a judgement about a man whose whole importance rests in the successful work, where these facts do not exist.

Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Patrick Swift (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.