Hans Hofmann: Trending quotes

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Hans Hofmann: 134 quotes3 likes

“This two-way transformation proceeds from metaphysical perceptions, for metaphysics is the search for the essential nature of reality. And so artistic creation is the metamorphosis of the external physical aspects of a thing into a self-sustaining spiritual reality. Such is the magic act which takes place continuously in the development of a work of art. On this and only on this is creation based.”

Hans Hofmann

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 40
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“An idea can only be materialized with the help of a medium of expression, the inherent qualities of which must be surely sensed and understood in order to become the carrier of an idea.”

Hans Hofmann

'Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann', p. 64
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Every art expression is rooted fundamentally in the personality and temperament of the artist.”

Hans Hofmann

Quote in: 'Hans Hofmann' by Cynthia Goodman, in Portfolio (January - February 1981), p. 47
1970s and later

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

Hans Hofmann

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Stand-up Comedy (1998) by Jay Sankey
1970s and later

“Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Of those three components only one, the medium, is material.”

Hans Hofmann

As quoted in Hans Hofmann (1963) by William Chapin Seitz, p. 15
1960s

“I do not want to avoid immersing myself in trouble — to be a mess — to struggle out of it. I want to invent, to discover, to imagine, to speculate, to improvise — to seize the hazardous in order to be inspired. I want to experience the manifestation of the absolute — the manifestation of the unexpected in an extreme and unique relation. I know that only by following my creative instincts in an act of creative destruction will I be able to find it.”

Hans Hofmann

Statement of April 1950, as quoted in Hans Hofmann (1998), ed. Helmut Friedel and Tina Dickey
1950s

“My paintings are always images of my whole psychic makeup. You cannot deny yourself. You ask, am I painting myself? I'd been a swindler if I did otherwise. I'd be denying my existence as an artist. I've been also asked, what do you want to convey? And I say, nothing but my own nature... I am nothing but an optimist.”

Hans Hofmann

1960s
Source: Hofmann, in Ashton, (1960's) Twetieth Century Artists on Art, 218

“I am many people.
Technique is always the consequence of the dominating concept.... with the change of concept, technique will change.”

Hans Hofmann

1950s

“Painting is aesthetic enjoyment; I want to be a 'poet'. As an artist I must conform to my nature. My nature has a lyrical as well as a dramatic disposition. Not one day is the same. One day I feel wonderful to work and I feel an expression, which shows in the work. Only with a very clear mind on a clear day I can paint without interruptions and without food because my disposition is like that. My work should reflect my moods and the greatest enjoyment I had when I did the work…”

Hans Hofmann

Quote from 'Artists' Session at Studio 35', (1950); as cited in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics (1990), ed. Clifford Ross, p. 225 
1950s

“The width of a line may present the idea of infinity. An epigram may contain a world. In the same way, a small picture format may be much more living, much more leavening, stirring, awakening, than square yards of wall space.”

Hans Hofmann

As quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America (1983) by W.C, Seitz, p. 88
1970s and later

“Basically I hate categorical labels. As a young artist I already was very clear about this — that 'objectification' is not the final aim of art. For there are greater things than the object. The greatest thing is the human mind.”

Hans Hofmann

As quoted in The Artist's Voice : Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists (1962) by Katharine Kuh, p. 118
1960s

“The encompassing, creative mind recognizes no boundaries. The mind has ever brought new spheres under its control.
All our experiences culminate in the perception of the universe as a whole, with man as its center.”

Hans Hofmann

'Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann', p. 61
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Monumentality is an affair of relativity. The truly monumental can only come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between parts. Since each thing carries both a meaning of its own and an associated meaning in relation to something else — its essential value is relative. We speak of the mood we experience when looking at a landscape. This mood results from the relation of certain things rather than from their separate actualities. This is because objects do not in themselves possess the total effect they give when interrelated.”

Hans Hofmann

'Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann', p. 68
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Then [speaking of his loosely figurative work of the 1930's, in Germany] I was still under nature, not that I was imitating it; now [1957] I am above nature. But everything comes from nature, I too am part of nature; my memory comes from nature, too.”

Hans Hofmann

Quote in: 'Hans Hofmann', Elizabeth Pollet, (interview of his 1957 Whitney Museum exhibition), Arts Magazine, May 1957 (article: 30-33)
1950s

“A thought that has found a plastic expression must continue to expand in keeping with its own plastic idiom. A plastic idea must be expressed with plastic means just as a musical idea is expressed with musical means, or a literary idea with verbal means. Neither music nor literature are wholly translatable into other art forms; and so a plastic art cannot be created through a superimposed literary meaning. The artist who attempts to do so produces nothing more than a show-booth. He contents himself with visual story-telling. He subjects himself to a mechanistic kind of thinking which disintegrates into fragments.”

Hans Hofmann

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 40-46
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Dreams and reality are united in our imagination. The artist possesses the means to create only after he has effective command of his faculty of empathy which he must develop simultaneously with his imaginative capacity.”

Hans Hofmann

'Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann', p. 61
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“The knowledge of reality, achieved by means of the complete sensory equipment, must be expressed artistically in terms of a medium which appeals to the memory of all sensory experience — but only through the eye.”

Hans Hofmann

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 54
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“The general misunderstanding of a work of art is often due to the fact that the key to its spiritual content and technical means is missed. Unless the observer is trained to a certain degree in the artistic idiom, he is apt to search for things which have little to do with the aesthetic content of a picture. He is likely to look for pure representational values when the emphasis is really upon music-like relationships.”

Hans Hofmann

'Painting and Culture' p. 56
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“Speech has arisen through the need for expression. Certain factors have contributed to making it the paramount utilitarian method of expression. There are ideas and things expressible in words, but there are ideas better expressed in music, the person with no musical ear, or without discipline in the language of music, lacks the key to the door of the world of musical experience. But we live in a world of volume and space; it is hard to conceive of the person who is space-blind or volume-deaf. The great majority of people have the means of approach to plastic beauty as part of their natural equipment. The teacher can develop this natural endowment as Necessity, the greatest teacher, has developed speech.”

Hans Hofmann

'Painting and Culture' p. 57
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“as quoted in Jackson Pollock, Ellen G Landau, p. 259, as quoted in Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Ines Janet Engelmann, Prestel Verlag Munich, 2007, p. 66”

Hans Hofmann

1970s and later