black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Ben Shahn

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
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.
BEN SHAHN

Personality Teaching Voice
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
BEN SHAHN

Knowledge Limited Photography
I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.
BEN SHAHN

Dull Elements World
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
Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.
BEN SHAHN

Blood Reputation War
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 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
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.
BEN SHAHN

Art Class Prediction Sculpture
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.
BEN SHAHN

Art Born Intuition
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
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
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

Action Interested People Photography Sake
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.
BEN SHAHN

Mode Painting Personal Thinking
To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
BEN SHAHN

Abstract 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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Shahn Quotes