Passion
"Practicing the history of art reduced to recording styles, techniques and conventions is pointless and solemnly boring activity. On the other hand, it seems fruitful to me to engage in a dialogue with the creator of the work, with his unique inner world, love, passion, tearing, and also his path of perfection, which he followed, which is his own. (...) Enthusiasts are drawn to what is individual, unique, eluding the patterns of eras and schools. They savor the details (...) They are resistant to the commonly accepted hierarchy of ratings, the company's reputation, they are able to identify the weak works of great painters, as well as unnoticed fragments of masterpieces. They are summa summarum heretics, but without them this fragment of human history, known as the history of art, would resemble a great manufactory in which workmen - sometimes brilliant - work on the tyrannical orders of the Spirit of Time". (Zbigniew Herbert)