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 SHAHNIt 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.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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If you’re going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art.
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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.
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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.
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I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.
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How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.
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To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
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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.
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Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.
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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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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