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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.

Ben Shahn

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

Dull Elements World
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.
BEN SHAHN

Journey Moving Self
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
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
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
Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Being Life Live
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
Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have preferred to work with Stryker than with my department, which was more artistic if you wish.
BEN SHAHN

Department Jobs Photography Wish Work
The popular eye is not untrained; it is only wrongly trained – trained by inferior and insincere visual representations.
BEN SHAHN

Eye Representation Vision Visual
To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
BEN SHAHN

Abstract Essence Matter
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
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
I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Believe Label
Art almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment.
BEN SHAHN

Art Enlightenment May Substitute
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
BEN SHAHN

Knowledge Limited Photography
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.
BEN SHAHN

Art Numbers Quality

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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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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Popular Authors

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