Interpenetration

In Hans Hofmann’s Interpenetration, color and form alternately approach and recede, reverberating across the surface of this exuberant painting by one of the great originators of Abstract Expressionism. Vibrant red and blue triangles shine forth from a rich textural environment of darker earth tones, yellow and greens. Multisided biomorphic shapes constructed of intersecting diagonals, horizontals, verticals, swirls and triangles occupy the composition’s center. The painting’s background is divided from lower left to upper right into two contrasting fields across the canvas’ diagonal—the upper portion constituted of dark, organic tonalities, the lower expressing yellow-ochre shadings. The abstract composition is built up from colors applied to a flat surface, yet one that conveys depth and dimension. Hans Hofmann said that his goal as an artist was to create paintings that emanate a mystic light purely through the qualities of paint itself, an art that would express his understanding of the energetic and erotic forces of life and nature.

Hofmann’s life and career bridged both the School of Paris and the New York School, and vivid traces of powerful currents in Modern art are apparent in his work. His innovations with color and form transcended genres, encompassing the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, the theories of Kandinsky and Mondrian, the vivid chromaticism of Fauvism, yet all constituting a unique style of Hofmann’s own. He was a synthesizer of major trends developing in modern movements of the early 20th century who concentrated the traditions of which he was a part, and simultaneously an innovator, acting as teacher and mentor to generations of American painters.