Interesting article on the influence of Ben Shahn's work in the latter half of 20th century illustration. The article takes a point of view that talks about the explosion of naive illustration these days, even going as far as to call it "bad drawing". I have to admit that I agree with the blog author's "disappointment" at how many illustrators seem to take on this approach these days. However, while it is certainly removed from the sort of illustration I am interested in making and seeing, I can appreciate the qualities when it is done well.
I personally believe good drawing/illustration is deeply rooted in a sound understanding of basic fundamentals; you have to "know the rules in order to break them". Picasso is probably an excellent example of someone who knew the rules and broke them because he could, and could do it well. The blog post implies that because Ben Shahn got famous with this naive approach, others saw it as an excuse to not train themselves in the fundamentals of good drawing.
I'm sure many of today's illustrators do have a solid understanding of drawing fundamentals; we just don't get to see it that often which I find to be a shame because of the seemingly over saturated market of naive illustration.
It's interesting to see exactly why so many illustrators suddenly took this approach to illustrating and where its origins began. Ben Shahn was a contemporary of Norman Rockwell.
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