Word: shahn
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...eloquent as Ben Shahn has been in the fall Norton lectures, his pictures speak with a bolder and more significant voice. The Fogg Museum has done well to complement the artist's stay here with an excellent exhibition of his work...
...more than three galleries given over to Shahn's art contain a wide variety of works. There are a number of book illustrations, drawings, Christmas cards--a selection of large graphic works including examples of his "commerical" art, as well as the more familiar paintings done in tempera, water color and gauche. Some of the artists best known works will be missed, such as Handball and Red Stairway, but these deficiencies are compensated for by the inclusion of many unusual and out of the way pieces...
...Sacco-Vanzetti series, and passion for life. Children eating ice cream cones, lovers in a dream, musicians absorbed in the playing of their music so that one can almost hear the notes. The artist is sentimental, pained, jubbilent, comic. An unusually fine draughtsman, only upon occasion does Shahn fall into confusion of details or lack of definition as I think happens in Labyrinth which could more neatly be titled "whirlwind...
...almost all of Shahn's paintings, man is the hero, not line or form. Even when his subjects are alienated or alone against architectural backrounds as in the work of Hopper, or in open spaces there is concentration on the human significance. Although Shahn's work is representational he can hardly be called a Realist. His pictures mean very much more than the objects or people they represent. Symbolic realism might better catch his selection and refinement of images, and aesthetic elaboration...
...Shahn's integration of form and content is an example to contemporary artists. This exhibit proves how "aesthetic" and formally complex it is possible to be and yet still able to communicate with, and relate to, society...