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 SHAHNThe natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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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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I love chaos…. It’s the poetic element in a dull and ordered world.
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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
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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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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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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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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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Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
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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.
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Form is the shape of content.
BEN SHAHN