Painting in the Style of Hans Hofmann

Mark Rothko is one of the main colorfield artists we studied in our American Humanities class, but upon researching colorfield painters, I felt that pre-conceived thoughts of what my abstract expressionism painting would be like aligned better with Hans Hofmann, an influential German immigrant. Hofmann, born in 1880 in Bavaria, came to America in 1932, and died in 1966. He grew up with a gift for mathematics and science but later gravitated towards creative art instead. Students flocked to his school of art in New York where had many successful students, among whom was Helen Frankenthaler.

New York, being the birthplace of abstract expressionism, was an opportune place for Hofmann to develop his style: a mixture of cubism, fauvism, and colorfield. It wasn’t until the 1940s that his paintings became completely abstracted. Hofmann strove to prune away the unnecessary from his works, leaving only the necessary. Nature was his passion; he created new landscapes composed of color, the tension between those colors, and abstract shapes and lines. He is often known for his pictorial style, spacial illusion, and color relationships. Hofmann is also well-known for his push-pull theory—three-dimensional items transmitted into two-dimensional shapes. Positive space was turned into light forms and negative spaces into dark. Hofmann never led a new artistic movement, but he is known as a synthesizer of many 20th century artistic movements. Hofmann is significant because of this synthesizing to make his own style, because of his push-pull theory, and because of the hundreds of art students who felt his influence.
American landscape artists often depicted the American land in a romantic, dramatized way; Hofmann’s style is opposite of that. Instead of elaborating the land for aesthetic appeal, he simplified it to get at the core truth of what nature is: an open search for the real. This simplification is culturally significant because, like Rothko, Hofmann tries to get at what is truly meaningful. On seeing Hofmann’s paintings, the audience begins to see the world around them differently—they search for the simple meanings. He also emphasizes the meaning of color and harmony in our world.

Hofmann’s paintings are probably just as well understood by the inartistically minded audience today as they were when he first created them. Maybe they are more accepting of his work today just because his abstraction is very much like reality compared with very abstract art that has followed. It is not understood that he is showing reality, not a pure abstraction. His is a pictorial style. Art critics, however, have always loved his work because they are very human, and yet still abstract.

The meaningo f his paintings have continued to stay the same in many ways because he was very specific in titling them in ways that the meaning cannot be easily misconstrued: “The Rope Swinger,” “Rising Moon,” “Morning Mist,” etc…There is, however, room to superimpose a modern landscape onto the colors and forms he uses.
“The Gate” is a piece of his that I used for inspiration when doing my own artistic piece. After reading of how many Abstract Expressionists comment on themes of the universal society in comparison to the individual and the internal and seeing Hofmann’s landscapes, I chose to do a painting of myself in comparison to the society and landscape I’m daily surrounded by. My landscape is the classroom. I learned of how hard it is to make colors harmonious and with one another. At times you want the colors to be balanced, and other times you want an imbalance. The negative and positive spacing was also difficult to control. I ended up having too much positive space, but it was something I wasn’t practiced enough to change. I learned that Hofmann and other Abstract Expressionists are much more attuned to creating in calculated ways opposed to creating randomly without meaning as often accused.