black
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I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.

Ben Shahn

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

Artist Conservative Member
Form is the shape of content.
BEN SHAHN

Content Form Shapes
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
BEN SHAHN

Knowledge Limited Photography
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.
BEN SHAHN

Saturday Something Time Wife Work
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.
BEN SHAHN

Art Living Pride Prospects Room Wall
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.
BEN SHAHN

Pamphlets Propaganda Skills Special
How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.
BEN SHAHN

Black Sky Yellow
All art is based on non-conformity.
BEN SHAHN

Art Based Conformity
To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
BEN SHAHN

Abstract Essence Matter
I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.
BEN SHAHN

Found Photography Sketching
Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material… so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things.
BEN SHAHN

Art Attitude Thinking
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.
BEN SHAHN

Done Ordinary Taken
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.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Peculiar Style
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 SHAHN

Artist Jobs Wife
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.
BEN SHAHN

Art Philosophy Rights
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.
BEN SHAHN

Lifetime Planting Recent Youngster

I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.

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I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.

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