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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

All art is based on non-conformity.
BEN SHAHN

Art Based Conformity
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
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.
BEN SHAHN

Affair Paint Painting Shapes Telling
I’ve been asked often what is the difference between an amateur and a professional artist, and I will tell you.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Differences Sunday
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.
BEN SHAHN

Desire Pregnancy United States
The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Focus Men
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.
BEN SHAHN

Editing Incredible Negative Numbers Stop
The popular eye is not untrained; it is only wrongly trained – trained by inferior and insincere visual representations.
BEN SHAHN

Eye Representation Vision Visual
It may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.
BEN SHAHN

Bearing Concept Degree Newness Number Possible
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
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
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
BEN SHAHN

Knowledge Limited Photography
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
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.
BEN SHAHN

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

Artist Conservative Member
Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.
BEN SHAHN

Believe Feels Paint

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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