When the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. This is contingent upon mastery of the medium.
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"Painting and Culture" p. 58Hans Hofmann
One must realize that, apart from considerations of color and form, there are two fundamentally different ways of regarding a medium of expression: one is based on taste only — an approach in which the external physical elements of expression are merely pleasingly arranged. This way results in decoration with no spiritual reaction. Arrangement is not art. The second way is based on the artist’s power of empathy, to feel the intrinsic qualities of the medium of expression. Through these qualities the medium comes to life. ... In this life, an intuitive artist discovers the emotive and vital substance which makes a work of art.
Hans Hofmann
'Medium,' 'Large' and 'King Size'? What the f**k is that? How the f**k can 'Medium' be the smallest? Do you even know what the word 'Medium' means? This is why you're all so fat, you bunch of road sign-shooting Yankee pillocks.
Ben Croshaw
Each expression-medium has a life of its own. Regulated by certain laws, it can be mastered only by intuition during the act of creating. It is in the nature of the laws which govern every expression medium that two separate entities, related through empathy, always produce a higher third of a purely spiritual nature. This spiritual third manifests itself as a quality which carries emotional content. This quality is the opposite of illusion; it is the reality of the spirit.
Hans Hofmann
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
The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature — translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive, and every work of art should be alive.
Hans Hofmann
Hofmann, Hans
Hofstadter, Douglas
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