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Lot Essay
Nocturn is a wonderful example of Hofmann's late paintings that digress from the tight linearity of his slab paintings. Hofmann's sense of freedom is expressed in the way in which the paint was densly applied layer upon layer; background concentrated forms in the center contrast with a brilliant Matissean blue and hover in space. As the title of the painting suggests, Hofmann is describing a natural phenomenon of nightfall and alluding to its elegiac and somber atmosphere.
Cynthia Goodman has commented on Hofmann's use of nature as a pictorial motif, " In some of the late paintings without rectangles the surfaces are lavishly covered with paint, as if Hofmann's lust for pigment was insatiable. The titles of a number of these pictures indicate his unfaltering observation of nature and his attempts to portray various natural phenomena" (C. Goodman, Hofmann, New York, 1986, pp. 99-100).
Hofmann had often stated that his painting process is linked, and could be understood in relation to the larger forces of human creativity and the mystical cosmos. His desire to view things in an all-encompassing manner is demonstrated in a work such as the present painting.
"In my own way of search as artist, the universe seems to be a will-directed magnetic entity with all life embedded in it. It is, figuratively speaking, a vast ocean that holds the sum total of all energy and the potentiality of all forces....All optical phenomena are the result of complementary compensation. Here we seem to be given an analogy between the universal laws and our creative mind. Our creative capacity sees itself mirrored in these laws. We are actively interwoven in it and so are our creative means. A picture is in the same way a universe--it holds its own life and mirrors a mind and a soul. Within all these laws seem[s] to be a directing will and we are also directed by this will--this will is the urge to create--it is a cosmic will that determines all creation" (Quoted in H. Friedel and T. Dickey, Hans Hofmann, New York, 1998, pp. 97-98).
Cynthia Goodman has commented on Hofmann's use of nature as a pictorial motif, " In some of the late paintings without rectangles the surfaces are lavishly covered with paint, as if Hofmann's lust for pigment was insatiable. The titles of a number of these pictures indicate his unfaltering observation of nature and his attempts to portray various natural phenomena" (C. Goodman, Hofmann, New York, 1986, pp. 99-100).
Hofmann had often stated that his painting process is linked, and could be understood in relation to the larger forces of human creativity and the mystical cosmos. His desire to view things in an all-encompassing manner is demonstrated in a work such as the present painting.
"In my own way of search as artist, the universe seems to be a will-directed magnetic entity with all life embedded in it. It is, figuratively speaking, a vast ocean that holds the sum total of all energy and the potentiality of all forces....All optical phenomena are the result of complementary compensation. Here we seem to be given an analogy between the universal laws and our creative mind. Our creative capacity sees itself mirrored in these laws. We are actively interwoven in it and so are our creative means. A picture is in the same way a universe--it holds its own life and mirrors a mind and a soul. Within all these laws seem[s] to be a directing will and we are also directed by this will--this will is the urge to create--it is a cosmic will that determines all creation" (Quoted in H. Friedel and T. Dickey, Hans Hofmann, New York, 1998, pp. 97-98).