Hans Hofmann: Quotes about art

Hans Hofmann was American artist. Explore interesting quotes on art.

Hans Hofmann: 134 quotes3 likes

“The relative meaning of two physical facts in an emotionally controlled relation always creates the phenomenon of a third fact of a higher order, just as two musical sounds, heard simultaneously create the phenomenon of a third, fourth or fifth. The nature of this higher third is non-physical. In a sense it is magic. Each such phenomenon always overshadows the material qualities and the limited meaning of the basic factors from which it has sprung. For this reason Art expresses the highest quality of the spirit when it is surreal in nature; or, in terms of the visual arts, when it is of a surreal plastic nature.”

'Search for the Real in the Visual Arts', p. 41
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

“The significance of a work of art is determined then by the quality of its growth. This involves intangible forces inherent in the process of development. Although these forces are surreal (that is, their nature is something beyond physical reality), they, nevertheless, depend on a physical carrier. The physical carrier (commonly painting or sculpture) is the medium of expression of the Surreal. Thus, an idea is communicable only when the surreal is converted into material terms. The artist’s technical problem is how to transform the material with which he works back into the sphere of the spirit.”

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

“Nature's purpose in relation to the visual arts is to provide stimulus — not imitation... From its ceaseless urge to create springs all Life — all movement and rhythm — time and light, color and mood — in short, all reality in Form and Thought.”

As quoted in Hans Hofmann (2000) by James Yohe
1970s and later

“The art of pictorial creation is so complicated — it is so astronomical in its possibilities of relation and combination that it would take an act of super-human concentration to explain the final realization.”

Quote of Hofmann in Hawthorne — the Painter: An Appreciation, (1952)
1950s