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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.

— Patrick Swift Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)

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More quotes by Patrick Swift

It is the transcendent imagination working on this material that releases the mysterious energies which move and speak of deepest existence.

Art, if it is successful in the task of questioning reality, if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God.

Italian Report (1955)

I believe when you bring, say, a plant into a room, everything in that room changes in relation to it. This tension — tension is the only word for it — can be painted.

The painter celebrates life where he finds it. His morality is the morality of enjoyment, of the continuous development of his own taste without shame or fear. It is a sort of heroism.

Each work of art is a complete entity existing in its own right and by its own particular logic.

Nano Reid (1950)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Patrick Swift (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.