Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahnwas a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content...
NationalityLithuanian
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth12 September 1898
CountryLithuania
Ben Shahn quotes about
art men today
It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today, for such a reminder.
moving journey self
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.
teaching voice personality
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.
art attitude thinking
Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material... so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things.
art wall pride
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.
art essence fundamentals
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.
art enlightenment may
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.
photography eye decision
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.
artist live-your-life being-an-artist
Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
efforts felt social strongly trying
I felt very strongly the whole social impact of that depression, you know, and I felt very strongly about the efforts that this Resettlement Administration was trying to accomplish; resettling people, helping them, and so on.
hard written
It's pretty hard to measure influence of written or visual material.
country job offered suggested worked
So, I was offered this job to come down there but first it was suggested that I take a trip around the country in the areas in which we worked to see what it's all about, and I tell you that was a revelation to me.
crowded people twelve
It used to be twelve people crowded around a sewing table; now it's ten.
realized roy
Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would have died.