Life of Hans Hofmann

Hans Hofmann, son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann, was born in Weissenburg, Bavaria on March 21st, 1880. When he was sixteen, he soon gravitated towards the arts, and began his formal art training after his father passed away in the late 1800s. In 1989, Hofmann studied at Moritz Heymann’s art school in Munich. Then in 1904, his instructor, Willi Schwartz suggested that he travel to France to continue his studies. In 1908 and 1909, Hofmann exhibited his work with the New Secession in Berlin. Hofmann was influenced by mystic painters like Kandinsky, who lived in Munich and whose book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” published in 1913, was one of his bibles (Kinser E2).

In 1930, Hofmann came to United States from Germany. Then he became a former student of the artist’s Munich art school. He also asked to serve as a guest professor for a summer session at the University of California at Berkeley (Boyce 139). In 1932 he settled in New York City, where he taught at the Art Students League on 57th Street. In 1933, Hofmann opened the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Art at 444 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Over the next few years, he thought the school would relocate several times, its reputation continued to spread. A summer school was opened in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1934, and Hofmann divided his time between the city and the coast. In 1939, he became an American citizen and continued to teach in New York and Provincetown for the next twenty-eight years (Kinmelman NA).
During the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, Hofmann’s dual role as teacher and artist would prove challenging for him. In 1949, he returned to Paris for the opening of his exhibition at the Galerie Maeght (Stella 14). At the age of 78, Hofmann was finally able to resign as a teacher and devote himself fully to his art. “Though a generation older than Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorki, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning, Hofmann took his place as a major and influential member of this thoroughly American art movement” (Kinser E2). In 1965, Hofmann married a young German woman, Renate, and painted a loving, glowing series of masterworks dedicated to her, which are now in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Lyons 66). On February 17, 1966 Hofmann died at the age of 86. On his easel was another painting, almost finished, dedicated to Renate? Retrospectives and exhibitions continue to this day, and his work is in permanent collections in galleries and museums from New York to New Zealand (Kinser E2).

Hans Hofmann was a great artist in the twentieth century. He drew a lot of paintings of abstract. In most of his paintings, he used many different shapes. He also used a lot of colors in them. However, in most of his paintings, there were many main colors. His painting mix Picasso and Matisse. From Picasso, he took Cubist space. From Matisse, he took an exquisite sensitivity to color relations. In fact, he distilled his understanding of the link between color and space into his legendary “push-pull” theory, which remains in play in art school today. Hofmann was not only a great artist, but also a great teacher of the twentieth century. He opened a school in Manhattan and taught them by himself. Hofmann was the first to include and apply theories of Modernism into a teaching system. He had a lot of great students. They almost had been influenced by Hofmann. As he for a teacher, he had influences. His paintings also had influenced people. From his paintings, people can feel many hopes. There are two painting in this paper to explain Hans Hofmann’s painting style and his famous theory “push-pull”. They all fully explained the theory. But they have something different. For example, the color and size of rectangles are very different between these two paintings.

Art is a great subject in the world. Every painting has its meaning of the world. Some are explain the world how to create. Some explain how to live. Many paintings are encouraging people to live with hope, others have some education meaning. Many artists based on their mind when they wanted to draw painting. People can learn something from the paintings. For example, how about the mood of the artist when he draw the painting, and then what he wanted show to people.
This is the painting named “Rising moon”. It was painted in 1964. This was an oil painting. The oil was on the canvas.

Hans Hofmann used five major colors. They were blue, green, yellow, red and black. The background color was blue. But it had a little white in the painting. He also used seven different rectangles in the painting. But this painting was different from other paintings drawn by him. In this painting, he used a lemon yellow circle on the left upside. At the left side, he used a big part of scarlet, and its shape was irregular.

If stare at the painting for a long time, people may see the big scarlet part like a bull. It has two little lemon yellow on the middle of the painting. So these lemon yellow parts are like the bull’s eyes. It was running there, and it looked like want to catch something. There was a little part upside on the dark back of the bull. It looked like a demon. But it also looked like an angel. Because the main color in this part was black, so looked it like a demon. It also had a little part of white in it, and it looked like a pair of wings. So it seems like an angel. Maybe it was a depraved angel. There was a little part that had no shape of red beside the small stand rectangle.

There were seven rectangles in the painting. They had the different colors and different size. Most of them liked stand on the painting, but one of them liked lie on the painting. These rectangles seem the enemy to the depraved angel. There were five rectangles in front of the bull and the depraved angel, and two rectangles on the bull. At last, one yellow-green rectangle under the bull. A part of purple mix black under the four rectangles. Maybe that part was the bull’s shadow. Why did a shadow in that part? From the title, it showed that it was a night. Because a moon on the left upside. So the shadow would be in front of the bull, not behind it. That was very strange in this painting.

This painting used dark blue for its background color. It seems that he wanted tell people that it was a clear night. So it was clearly in the night. The moon was in the painting’s left upside, but it only used a little part of the painting. Why did Hans Hofmann make the painting’s name “Rising moon” and only use a little part to draw the moon? Maybe Hans Hofmann used “Rising moon” as the painting’s title in order to tell people that the moon always there, no matter what happens. It is always there to watch all the things happen and the end. The moon didn’t change no matter what happened, no matter what people are doing. When they were doing a secret thing, no matter it was good or bad, they think it was secret, but in fact, the moon see all the things what they did.

This painting had something interesting. Hans Hofmann used three kind of yellow color in the painting. And their colors were different, too. These parts gave people a feeling that these three parts seem not in the same surface. The lying rectangle would be on the top surface, then the stand rectangle would further then the lying rectangles. The moon was the farthest of these three parts. The color of these parts also different. The lying rectangle was lemon yellow. Then the stand rectangle was a little darker than the lying one. The moon seems black compare with the lying rectangle. So it gave a special feeling to people from the color of yellow. It seems that the lying rectangle gave people a feeling of happy. And the moon gave them a little sad. If they can recognize the three parts of yellow had different surfaces, so they may recognize the big red, green, and blue rectangle also in the different surfaces. The blue one was closer than others. Hans Hofmann drawn it wanted to outside and it didn’t want to wait a more second. Then the green one would closer from people’s eyes to the painting than the red one. It showed that it didn’t nervous forever. No matter what happen in the world, it does its thing just base on its mind. At last, it was the red rectangle. It seems that it was very lazy. It wanted behind the others. So the painting had a feeling of three-D.

“Hofmann came to United States in 1930. After that he influence by Americans culture. He often made with the square end of a matchstick dipped in ink breathe more freely. The spaces open without jittery inflections of dots and markings and the forms anchored and yet relaxed. After he came to the United States, Hans Hofmann’s American drawings exhibit his growing confidence” (Boyce 139). “Hofmann obviously loved his Provincetown life, and from painting reflects it. A crisp medley of large and small geometric shapes in sunny yellows, greens and reds inflected by a recognized shape or two” (Glueck 36). “The paintings on display here reflect Hofmann’s lifelong fascination with color. Some are semiabstract that derive from landscapes, figures or still life, others are studies in color, shape and movement, including some dominated by the bold, bright rectangles that are his most recognizable signature” (Kinser E2). “For a public that, had come to admire the rough and tumble qualities of Jackson Pollpck’s and Willem de Kooning’s paintings, Hofmann’s works, with their characteristically high-key palette of bright greens and reds and yellows, seemed too decorative” (Kinmelman NA). “In this sense, the colored washes that appear behind Hofmann’s rectangles might also be seen as acting in a fractional dimension, that the washes and diluted splashes recede from a two-dimensional surface toward a one-dimensional point, making spirited color acting activity in a pictorial space of one and a half dimensions” (Stella 14). “All the paintings in this show are yellow and have the splendor of sunlight. Yellow dominated this recent shoe as well. Some of the large paintings, such as an untitled work from 1963, offered viewers the chance to experience this color as a nearly cosmic entity” (Goodman 126).

From this painting, Hans Hofmann showed his confidence in this painting. He used his way to draw the painting. He influenced by Picasso and Matisse, so his painting had something from them. But these things were changed by Hans Hofmann. He explained them in a different way from Picasso and Matisse. He used shape to explain his theory “push-pull”. Hofmann’s painting almost abstract, but in this painting, the big red part maybe more clearly. It looked like a bull. However, he also drew the painting meaningful, and made us had a feeling of three-D.
The second painting was untitled by Hans Hofmann. But it was also a painting to expose his painting style perfectly. Because Hans Hofmann didn’t make a title to this painting, so people don’t know when he painted. It was also an oil painting on canvas.

Hans Hofmann used three main colors in this painting. They were red, green and blue. There were many other colors in this painting. In fact, these colors were mixed by the three main colors. But Hofmann also used a few other colors in the painting. For example, white. Because of white didn’t mix from other colors.
This painting seems something burning out. It gave people a feeling of three-D. It liked the Catharine was burning out. Hans Hofmann also used many rectangles in this painting, but he didn’t use shape in most of the painting. Most of part in the painting was curved shape. It was very interesting in this painting. Hans Hofmann separate this painting to two parts, one for left and another for right, so people would recognized that in the left part was all the curved shape and many have no shape. And the right part was most of the rectangles. Hofmann’s paintings were abstract. But people also can feel the painting like something. For example, the left part looked like a person who was riding a dog. The purple part was the dog, and the part above the dog was the person. The right part seems like went away to right. Many blue and green rectangles were in different position. So they made people think about that they went away hurry up. It seems that something terror there.

This painting used red color to its background color. It liked a burning volcano. But it had different lava. The lava was blue. So it made the painting had a feeling of harmonious. The red color seems a feeling of hot. It was different from the painting one. Painting one’s background color was blue, so it was different from the red color. It was cool and quiet. But in this painting gave people a passion. It seems to say that hurry up, don’t waste the time. Go to do something good. The painting had encouraged to people.

“Hofmann’s use of color looks marvelously vivid and seductive. His willingness to turn out at same moment different sorts of images-paintings composed of formless splotches and squiggles, paintings composed of meticulously constructed rectangles, and paintings combining these two approaches-suggests not only a youthfulness of character but also a refusal to conform to the demands of the marketplace” (Kinmelman NA). “Hofmann believed that color alone could activate a flat shape on a flat surface, making it appear as if the colored shape had enough substance to both create its own space within that surface and occupy a space in front of it. Moreover, he seems to have grasped almost immediately that this could also work in the opposite direction the color in fact could give the impression of receding and dissolving into the space behind the surface plane” (Stella 14). “Hofmann used making tape to define the edges and build up the thicker paint of the rectangles, leaving little ridges of paint when the tape was removed. Rather than using masking tape to create neat, crisp edges, though, Hofmann employed it as a ruler, with little concern for accidental bleeding or smears” (Colpitt 102). “Hofmann made drawings to exhaust seeing strictly in terms of line and form. Into the early 1940s, the drawings edge ever closer to would characterize his later career: line becomes edge become his trademark push and pull” (Boyce 139). “Hans Hofmann was influenced by mystic painters like Kandinsky, who lived in Munich and whose book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” Published in 1913, was one of his bibles” (Kinser E2).
Hans Hofmann’s paintings were abstract, so people can’t clearly to know what he wanted show. But from these paintings, people also know a little about meaning in his painting. For example, in the second painting, Hofmann showed his passion. He used his way to show people that his passion. His famous theory was “push-pull”. He also used this theory in this painting. In the left side of the painting, the colors seems pointing to inside, and the right side was pointing to outside. It gave people a feeling of three-D. Hans Hofmann also used his rectangles in the painting. But it was different from the first painting. In painting one, he used many big rectangles, but in this painting, he just used many little rectangles. Maybe this painting was painted before he came to the United States. Because there were many different between Hans Hofmann’s European drawings from the late 1920s and those he made later in the United States. The United States is more freedom than Germany and United States has more rules than Germany. So the first painting had big rectangles and had squared end of the rectangles. Otherwise, in the second painting had a few and small rectangles. Most of painting was full of the curved shape. As for the color, Hofmann used yellow in most part in painting one, but it was a little part of yellow in the second painting