Nano Reid (1950)
Context: Each work of art is a complete entity existing in its own right and by its own particular logic. It has its own reality and is independent of any particular creed or theory as a justification for its existence. This is not to say that artistic development may be considered as a self-sufficient process unrelated to social reality, because art is always concerned with the deeper and fundamentally human things; and any consideration of art is a consideration of humanity. But it does mean that we cannot apply the principles and logic of the past to a new work of art and hope to understand it. The eternal verities with which the artist is concerned do not change, but our conception of art does, as does our conception of form, and these must be extended if we are to understand fully and basically the meaning of a new work. It is a complex matter, but the elemental principles are always simple. The mass of modern art theory that developed around the fantastic changes of this century's painting can be largely ignored; only one or two fundamental principles are important. Probably most important in the new aesthetics from the painter's point of view was the statement of Degas, seventy years ago, in his unheeded advice to the Impressionists. He spoke then of a "Transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory... It is very well to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what one has retained in one's memory”…This attitude, and all it implies, underlines the work of practically every painter of importance since 1900. Ultimately, it meant that the day of stage props and models was gone, and that imagination was recognised as the most important quality in an artist.
Patrick Swift: Trending quotes (page 2)
Patrick Swift trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection“One cannot argue or explain in paint.”
The Artist Speaks (1951)
Context: Any painter who thinks he has something to say to the people, or anything to contribute to the world of ideas or literature, is treading dangerous ground; the influence of literature on painting is at all times dangerous if not deadly. Painting is a visual art; and the job of the artist must be to create in visual terms the tension experienced. One cannot argue or explain in paint. The aim is not to put in everything that will help, but as little as one can help, so that a picture is in one sense a “sum of destructions”. It is a question of honesty and courage: “One produces only the necessary” — Degas
"The Painter in the Press", X magazine, Vol. I, No.4 (October 1960).
Context: The Art of painting is itself an intensely personal activity… a picture is a unique and private event in the life of the painter: an object made alone with a man and a blank canvas... A real painting is something which happens to the painter once in a given minute; it is unique in that it will never happen again and in this sense is an impossible object... And it is something which happens in life not in art: a picture which was merely the product of art would not be very interesting and could tell us nothing we were not already aware of. The old saying, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”, expresses the opposite idea to that which animates the painter before his canvas. It is precisely what he does not know which may destroy him.
“For even the painter himself cannot be fully aware of the way in which the picture gets made”
X magazine (1959-62)
Context: For even the painter himself cannot be fully aware of the way in which the picture gets made: there is a wide area of the unpredictable in the act of pushing paint about in the definition of an image.
Notebooks
Context: What trace of the creature subsists in the work. It is a way of staying alone, passing the time subjected to the object — silent, still. Walk with humility in the landscape. To be some natural thing — an ancient tree — no thinking — not to think is central to the activity.
“Its life depends on the degree to which it is inhabited by mystery, speaks to us of the unknown.”
"The Painter in the Press", 'X magazine, Vol. I, No.4 (October 1960).
Italian Report (1955)
Portuguese Notes (Gandon Editions Biography 1993).
Notebooks
“Metaphysics — what metaphysics do those trees have?”
Notebooks
Variant: Metaphysics — what metaphysics do those trees have?
Italian Report (1955)
Italian Report (1955).
Italian Report (1955)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Opus XVI]
X magazine (1959-62)
“The development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development.”
"Italian Report" (December 1955).
The Artist Speaks (1951)
X magazine (1959-62)
“But of course these pictures are not shocking; good painting never is.”
Some Notes on Caravaggio (1956)