All Ben Shahn Quotes
- I was brought in, not in the photographic department at all, I was brought in on a thing called Special Skills. I was to do… All
- The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society. Artist
- 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… Art
- Form is the shape of content... Content
- Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material... so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things. Actual
- The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance. Artist
- 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… Any
- 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… Imitate
- Only an individual can imagine, invent, or create. The whole audience of art is an audience of individuals. Art
- 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… Apprehension
- 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… Adequate
- The values that reside in art are anarchic, they are every man's loves and hates and his momentary divine revelation. Anarchic
- 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… Artist
- 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… Alert
- 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… Any
- Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel. Believe
- 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.… All
- The popular eye is not untrained; it is only wrongly trained - trained by inferior and insincere visual representations. Eye
- An amateur is someone who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him… Amateur
- Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would have died. Another Bureaucrat