Ben Shahn Quotes

Artist

Ben Shahn was an American artist known for his social realism style and woodcuts. His works often focused on the lives of the working class and ordinary people, reflecting the social and political conditions of the United States in the 20th century.

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All Art Artist Art Is Ifs May Painting Photography Paint Believe Form

Famous Ben Shahn Quotes

“It is an intimately communicative affair between the painter and his painting, a conversation back and forth, the painting telling the painter even as it receives its shape and form.”

Form Painting Shapes Conversation Affair Painter Intimacy Back And Forth

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“I was brought in, not in the photographic department at all, I was brought in on a thing called Special Skills. I was to do posters, pamphlets, murals, propaganda in general, you know.”

Knows Special Skills Propaganda Department Posters Mural

Author:Ben Shahn

“The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.”

Artist Members Conservative Uneasiness

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospects of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a great many devoted art lovers to rout.”

May Art Rooms Wall Pride Lovers Great Men Devoted Vans Living Room Collectors Prospects Art Lovers Room Wall Living Room Wall

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“Form is the shape of content.”

Form Shapes

Book:Ben Shahn: Paintings and Graphics : [exhibition] Santa Barbara Museum of Art, July 30, 1967-September 10, 1967; La Jolla Museum of Art, October 5, 1967-November 12, 1967 ; Art Association of Indianapolis, Herron Museum of Art, December 3, 1967-January 3, 1968

Source: Ben Shahn: Paintings and Graphics : [exhibition] Santa Barbara Museum of Art, July 30, 1967-September 10, 1967; La Jolla Museum of Art, October 5, 1967-November 12, 1967 ; Art Association of Indianapolis, Herron Museum of Art, December 3, 1967-January 3, 1968

“Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material... so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things.”

Thinking May Art Ideas Form Belief Attitude Materials Impact Endure Arise

“The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.”

Men Artist Humanity Natural Focus Importance Reactions

Author:Ben Shahn

“Content may by trivial. But I do not think that any person may pronounce either upon the weight or upon the triviality of an idea before its execution.”

Thinking May Persons Ideas Weight Execution Triviality

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“It is not the how of painting but the why. To imitate a style would be a little like teaching a tone of voice or a personality.”

Littles Would Be Voice Teaching Style Painting Personality Tone Imitation

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“Only an individual can imagine, invent, or create. The whole audience of art is an audience of individuals.”

Art Whole Individual Audience Imagine Art Is Individuality

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“The apprehension of... values is intuitive; but it is not a built-in intuition, not something with which one is born. Intuition in art is actually the result of... prolonged tuition.”

Art Values Born Results Art Is Built Intuition Intuitive Apprehension Tuition

Author:Ben Shahn

“The moving toward one's inner self is a long pilgrimage for a painter. It offers many temporary successes and high points, but impels him on toward the more adequate image.”

Long Self Moving Journey Offers Painter Temporary Adequate Inner Self Pilgrimage High Points

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“The values that reside in art are anarchic, they are every man's loves and hates and his momentary divine revelation.”

Men Art Values Hate Divine Every Man Revelations Love And Hate Momentary Divine Revelation

Author:Ben Shahn

“Personal style, be it that of Michelangelo, or that of Tintoretto... has always been that peculiar personal rapport which has developed between an artist and his medium.”

Artist Style Mediums Peculiar Personal Style Rapport

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“If one has set for himself the position that his painting shall not misconstrue his personal mode of thinking, then he must be rather alert to just what he does think.”

Ifs Thinking Doe Position Painting

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward; it may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.”

May Art States Numbers Quality Study Degrees Concepts Tradition Infinite Traditional Psychological Merit Remarkable Works Of Art Glances Nostalgic Feats Newness Craftsmanship

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.”

Feels Believe Paint

Author:Ben Shahn

“Each artist comes to the painting or sculpture because there he can be told that he, the individual, transcends all classes and flouts all predictions. In the work of art, he finds his uniqueness confirmed.”

Art Artist Individual Class Painting Works Of Art Uniqueness Predictions Sculpture

Author:Ben Shahn

Eye Vision Visuals Inferiors Representation Insincere

Author:Ben Shahn

“Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.”

Artist Live Your Life Being An Artist

Author:Ben Shahn

“I've been asked often what is the difference between an amateur and a professional artist, and I will tell you. An amateur artist is one who works all week at something else so he can paint on Saturday and Sunday. A professional artist is one whose wife works so he can paint all the time.”

Artist Differences Wife Week Paint Sunday Saturday Saturday And Sunday

Author:Ben Shahn

“To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.”

Matter Draws Essence Abstract Abstraction

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“I confess that Roy [Stryker] was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn't understand at the time.”

Littles Used Bits Numbers Little Bit Negative Valuable Holes Editing Ruined

Author:Ben Shahn

“The artist must operate on the assumption that the public consists in the highest order of individual; that he is civilized, cultured, and highly sensitive both to emotional and intellectual contexts. And while the whole public most certainly does not consist in that sort of individual, still the tendency of art is to create such a public - to lift the level of perceptivity, to increase and enrich the average individual's store of values... I believe that it is in a certain devotion to concepts of truth that we discover values.”

“What is it about conformity itself that causes us all to require it of our neighbors and of our artists and then, with consummate fickleness, to forget those who fall into line and eternally celebrate those who do not?”

Artist Fall Causes Lines Forget Neighbor Celebrate Conformity

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.”

Art Philosophy Nations Rights Art Is Bills Fewer Continents Education System Bill Of Rights Nonconformity Public Education Magna Carta

Author:Ben Shahn

“Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.”

Knows Moments Eye Courses Realizing Decision Photography Facility Snaps

Author:Ben Shahn

“Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have preferred to work with Stryker than with my department, which was more artistic if you wish.”

Ifs Jobs Wish Photography Artistic Department

Author:Ben Shahn

“Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.”

Photography

Book:Ben Shahn

Source: Ben Shahn

“Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.”

Has Beens War Blood Reputation Antiwar Historic Nonconformity

Author:Ben Shahn

“I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.”

Feels Choices Felt My Own Photography Mediums

Author:Ben Shahn

“To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.”

Art Matter Certain Materials Draws Art Is Essence Fundamentals Abstract Surround Irrelevant Abstraction

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“An ametuer is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.”

Jobs Artist Support Wife Paint

Author:Ben Shahn

“The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time.”

Knows States Desire United United States Middle Pregnancy Pennies Hoboken

Author:Ben Shahn

“I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.”

Ifs Believe Artist Left I Believe Labels

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

“How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.”

Black Sky Paint Yellow Jet Wheat

Author:Ben Shahn

“All art is based on non-conformity.”

Art Art Is Conformity Non Conformity

Author:Ben Shahn

“I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.”

Found My Own Photography Inadequate Sketching

Author:Ben Shahn

“I was primarily interested in people, and people in action, so that I did nothing photographically in the sense of doing buildings for their own sake or a still life or anything like that.”

People Stills Action Building Sake Still Life

Author:Ben Shahn

“When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.”

People Ifs Mean War Shows Today Deals Poverty Degrees Percentages War On Poverty

Author:Ben Shahn

“It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today, for such a reminder.”

Men Humans Art Today Missions Reminders Ripe

Author:Ben Shahn

“We tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that's the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was so ordinary. Nobody had ever done it before, deliberately. Now it's called documentary, which I suppose is all right ... We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.”

Done Taken Ordinary Extraordinary Paradox Cried Documentaries

Book:Ben Shahn

Source: Ben Shahn

“If you're going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art. A youngster told me recently that he was going to give himself a year to see if he has talent. A year! It takes a lifetime to see if you have it. Painting is total engagement.”

Ifs Giving Years Art Life Is Artist Subjects Talent Painting Lifetime Engagement Youngsters

Author:Ben Shahn

“I love chaos.... It's the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.”

World Elements Chaos Dull Poetic

Book:Ben Shahn

Source: Ben Shahn

“Art almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment.”

May Art Authority Enlightenment Substitutes Ingredients Impudence

Book:The Shape of Content

Source: The Shape of Content

About the Author

Born: September 12, 1898
Died: March 14, 1969
Known for: Artist
Quotes: 45

Books & Sources

The Shape of ContentRelated source material

Ben ShahnRelated source material

Ben Shahn: Paintings and Graphics : [exhibition] Santa Barbara Museum of Art, July 30, 1967-September 10, 1967; La Jolla Museum of Art, October 5, 1967-November 12, 1967 ; Art Association of Indianapolis, Herron Museum of Art, December 3, 1967-January 3, 1968Related source material

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