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.
BEN SHAHNEach 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.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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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.
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I’ve been asked often what is the difference between an amateur and a professional artist, and I will tell you.
BEN SHAHN -
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.
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The values that reside in art are anarchic, they are every man’s loves and hates and his momentary divine revelation.
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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.
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Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.
BEN SHAHN -
Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
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It may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.
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The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
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The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.
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.
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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.
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I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.
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.
BEN SHAHN -
How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.
BEN SHAHN