Ben Shahn Quotes

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.

I think I've always been aware of it with my music. I think growing up basically and having a lot to deal with and just slowing down and having something to say and something to retract from, I think I just knew that what I was doing was extremely honest.

I feel like you can't really be truthful as an artist and empathize with the human experience, unless you know your truth and you're not living a lie. So I'm learning through it, and it's making me a better person, and it's making me a better artist, I think.

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

I don't really see how any song can not feel contrived if it isn't honest, and how could I write honest songs if I don't write about stuff going on in my life and how I'm feeling?

I can only speak for myself and my own music, because that is what I am most familiar with, and I write about things that I am living or experiencing.

There was a time, early on in my career, when it was very important for me to be liked by everyone. It meant that I was musically less honest with myself.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

In general I think that in art you only have the responsibility to tell the truth.

I think, in general, as a writer, you can't really hide your values. They're always going to fall out onto the page, and I tend to trust that I don't have to force my ideals into the expression of what's going to happen naturally.

I don't want to sign four films at a time, as acting is an art, and art cannot be done without honesty.

I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.

I just don't believe in making music about making music anymore.

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

In literary art, as in the art of the architect, the painter, the musician, signs that the artist is thinking of his own achievement more than of his subject always offend me.

In a sense, I feel like the job of the artist at all times is essentially the same, which is simply to tell the truth. I mean, I'm nervous about any prescriptions for what a writer should or shouldn't do.

The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting that which he sees before him. Otherwise, his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead.

I think my painting is so autobiographical if anyone can take the trouble to read it.