75 Quotes by Hans Hofmann

Space expands or contracts in the tensions and functions through which it exists. Space is not a static, inert thing. Space is alive; space is dynamic; space is imbued with movement expressed by forces and counterforces; space vibrates and resounds with color, light and form in the rhythm of life.

We are connected with our own age if we recognize ourselves in relation to outside events; and we have grasped its spirit when we influence the future.

Genius is gifted with a vitality which is expended in the enrichment of life through the discovery of new worlds of feeling.

You must break all the rules of painting, but you must also convince me you've had a reason to do so.

A work of art is finished, from the point of view of the artist, when feeling and perception have resulted in a spiritual synthesis.

The impulse of nature, fused through the personality of the artist by laws arising from the particular nature of the medium, produces the rhythm and the personal expression of a work. Then the life of the composition becomes a spiritual unity.

The difference between the arts arises because of the difference in the nature of the mediums of expression and the emphasis induced by the nature of each medium. Each means of expression has its own order of being, its own units.

To sense the invisible and to be able to create it, that is art.

The product of movement and counter-movement is tension. When tension working strength is expressed, it endows the work of art with the living effect of coordinated, though opposing, forces.