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 SHAHNArt almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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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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I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.
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Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.
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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.
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Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material… so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things.
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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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The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
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All art is based on non-conformity.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
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Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
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To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
BEN SHAHN