Shahn Discusses Permanent Basis For Judging Art

Ben Shahn affirmed last night in the fifth Charles Eliot Norton lecture that there could be some fundamental basis for evaluating art.

This basis cannot be told to someone like a formula but can only be recognized by an intuition educated by long training, he said. A public trained on tawdry objects often cannot have an intuition capable of recognizing serious art.

Shahn emphasized that a distinction must be drawn between the universal value of truth and the local values induced in artists by our particular culture.

He mentioned six values of our culture that produce shallow art. The first is the concept of freedom, which sometimes means "the only ingredient left in art besides paint, is freedom."

Pernicious Up-to-dateness

The effect of the second value, "Up-to-dateness," can be equally pernicious. In this respect he quoted "an artistic friend" who said, "Sometimes I wish to paint like the old masters but I can't; no one wishes to be out of the swim of things."

Science is a third modern influence which might have a bad effect on art. Shahn disclaimed "the present tendency of some to borrow glory and value by a self-association with science."

Those ultra-sophisticated persons who believe that no art which gains popular favor can be good can have as bad an effect as those who think that popular opinion should be the only judge, he added.

Several other values of our culture which Shahn claims can be harmful to art are "the idea of achievement without effort, and faith in know-how."

Three of this year's six Charles Eliot Norton Lectures were given in November, and the fourth, on "Image and Idea" last week.