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Lot Essay
Painted in 1956, Hans Hofmann’s Variation of a Theme in Blue No. II, is a pivotal painting, signaling a move from lyrical compositions dominated by organic, suggestive lines interspersed among passages of color to the more geometric and rectilinear style that would dominate Hofmann’s paintings in the years to come.
The wild and energetic brushstrokes that adorn the surface of this rich canvas adjust their temperature from a hot, explosive lower register to a looser, cooler upper two-thirds. While hindsight allows for a clear picture of Hofmann’s direction in the coming years, Variation of a Theme in Blue No. II offers only visual hints as so what lay ahead for the painter. Strokes of color abut each other in the center and blend at the corners, creating potent edges in which the extent of Hofmann’s mastery of color is made apparent. The green rhombus at the right-hand side of the painting presages the embedded jewels of solid paint that Hofmann would come to rely on. The calculated angularity with which Hofmann organizes this canvas marks an important step for an artist who, in years previous, relied more on an impasto application of paint and a frenetic, all-over vibrancy.
Hofmann’s exuberant use of color embraces the legacy of the fauvist penchant for vibrant, irrational, and at times, acidic hues. Hofmann’s study of the expressive capability of color takes its cue from the intense color palette of Matisse and Robert Delaunay. Indeed, Delaunay’s thoughts on color theory resonate closely with Hofmann’s work. As Hofmann would allow his inner feelings to collide with his visceral responses to nature, so Delaunay described the transcendence of art’s subtle mimesis: “Nature is permeated by rhythms whose variety cannot be restricted. Art imitates it in this respect, in order to clarify itself and thereby attain the same degree of sublimity, raising itself to a state of multiple harmonies, a harmony of colors that are divided at one moment and resorted to wholeness by the selfsame action at the next. This synchronic action is to be regarded as the real and only subject of painting” (R. Delaunay quoted in H. Friedel, (ed.), Hans Hofmann, Munich, 1997, p. 8). These pairings of dissonant colors create an undeniable harmonious musicality, which resonates from the work, recalling the chromatic musicality of Kandinsky’s abstract compositions. Gentle flashes of yellow, green and blue simultaneously emerge from and dissipate into a range of warm, golden hues Like waves crashing into the sand, thick, luscious applications of paint achieve a shallow relief, causing them physically as well as pictorially to emerge from the ground.
As one of the major figures of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann represents a crucial bridge between European movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and the new bravura style of American painting. In 1956, Hofmann was at the height of his creative powers, as he refined and distilled his painterly technique and its underlying principles. It is evident in a painting such as this that Hofmann was formulating a new kind of painterly expression, one in which he incorporates the Cubist structure of overlapping planes in order to indicate depth and surface, as well as adapting the Fauvist daring use of color and tonal contrasts to evoke a sense of pure and unbridled energy.
Hofmann sought the mythic, the fundamental and the symphonic is his paintings, conveying these qualities through line and color and heightening them by the vitality of the brushstrokes and impasto so evident in every part of this dazzling canvas. In order to bring nature and life into his works, Hofmann spilled himself into synthesizing color, shape and line, taking advantage of lessons learned courtesy of Kandinsky as well as the Surrealists use of automatism. The Surrealist introduction of chance, of forces from the world outside the canvas, was intended less as a means of adding autobiographical content to his paintings than as a way of allowing the picture to come into existence through an almost organic means. It allowed new, spontaneous forms such as the amorphous shapes of color to burst into existence. At the same time, it revealed his continued ability to absorb new influences. Hofmann was constantly roving, growing and learning while he simultaneously influenced the artists around him.
The wild and energetic brushstrokes that adorn the surface of this rich canvas adjust their temperature from a hot, explosive lower register to a looser, cooler upper two-thirds. While hindsight allows for a clear picture of Hofmann’s direction in the coming years, Variation of a Theme in Blue No. II offers only visual hints as so what lay ahead for the painter. Strokes of color abut each other in the center and blend at the corners, creating potent edges in which the extent of Hofmann’s mastery of color is made apparent. The green rhombus at the right-hand side of the painting presages the embedded jewels of solid paint that Hofmann would come to rely on. The calculated angularity with which Hofmann organizes this canvas marks an important step for an artist who, in years previous, relied more on an impasto application of paint and a frenetic, all-over vibrancy.
Hofmann’s exuberant use of color embraces the legacy of the fauvist penchant for vibrant, irrational, and at times, acidic hues. Hofmann’s study of the expressive capability of color takes its cue from the intense color palette of Matisse and Robert Delaunay. Indeed, Delaunay’s thoughts on color theory resonate closely with Hofmann’s work. As Hofmann would allow his inner feelings to collide with his visceral responses to nature, so Delaunay described the transcendence of art’s subtle mimesis: “Nature is permeated by rhythms whose variety cannot be restricted. Art imitates it in this respect, in order to clarify itself and thereby attain the same degree of sublimity, raising itself to a state of multiple harmonies, a harmony of colors that are divided at one moment and resorted to wholeness by the selfsame action at the next. This synchronic action is to be regarded as the real and only subject of painting” (R. Delaunay quoted in H. Friedel, (ed.), Hans Hofmann, Munich, 1997, p. 8). These pairings of dissonant colors create an undeniable harmonious musicality, which resonates from the work, recalling the chromatic musicality of Kandinsky’s abstract compositions. Gentle flashes of yellow, green and blue simultaneously emerge from and dissipate into a range of warm, golden hues Like waves crashing into the sand, thick, luscious applications of paint achieve a shallow relief, causing them physically as well as pictorially to emerge from the ground.
As one of the major figures of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann represents a crucial bridge between European movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and the new bravura style of American painting. In 1956, Hofmann was at the height of his creative powers, as he refined and distilled his painterly technique and its underlying principles. It is evident in a painting such as this that Hofmann was formulating a new kind of painterly expression, one in which he incorporates the Cubist structure of overlapping planes in order to indicate depth and surface, as well as adapting the Fauvist daring use of color and tonal contrasts to evoke a sense of pure and unbridled energy.
Hofmann sought the mythic, the fundamental and the symphonic is his paintings, conveying these qualities through line and color and heightening them by the vitality of the brushstrokes and impasto so evident in every part of this dazzling canvas. In order to bring nature and life into his works, Hofmann spilled himself into synthesizing color, shape and line, taking advantage of lessons learned courtesy of Kandinsky as well as the Surrealists use of automatism. The Surrealist introduction of chance, of forces from the world outside the canvas, was intended less as a means of adding autobiographical content to his paintings than as a way of allowing the picture to come into existence through an almost organic means. It allowed new, spontaneous forms such as the amorphous shapes of color to burst into existence. At the same time, it revealed his continued ability to absorb new influences. Hofmann was constantly roving, growing and learning while he simultaneously influenced the artists around him.