Once again, I started today with a pen and ink scribble of the back yard again. Several comments about my back yard forays: First of all, I do not feel obligated any more to reproduce the appearance of every leaf on every tree. I credit this to Paul Klee and his description of drawing as […]
I’ve been trying too hard. During the past few weeks I’ve been trying to puzzle through the creative works and teachings of Paul Klee and Hans Hofmann. I was hoping (and to some degree, expecting) to apply their principles to my own artistic expression. Klee‘s basic premise, from my readings of his Notebooks, is that the […]
I just started reading Migraine by Oliver Sacks. Sacks, a neurologist, has written many books over the years, based on case studies of some of his patients. One of his books, An Anthropologist on Mars is a favorite of mine, because the title essay is about Dr. Temple Grandin, the famous animal scientist and very well known […]
Depiction of personal space So much has been written about the philosophy of space, that I can’t possibly summarize the different positions in one or even a dozen postings. However, I am in the process of combing the philosophic, artistic and scientific literature to arrive at my own understanding of (physical and inner) space and […]
Different spaces Although this will be a short post tonight, the topic of space is enormous. There are all kinds of spaces: personal space; Newtonian space; Einsteinian space also known as space-time; dream space; virtual space; imagined space and perceived space, and others that I can’t think of at the moment. It the past few […]
Good question… My interest in studying artists like Paul Klee and Hans Hofmann is to gain a better understanding of how these artists translated their visions into visual language. One of my favorite quotes from Klee is, “An artist does not reproduce the visible, but rather, makes visible.” One of the most vexing things about […]
I am intrigued by the work of Hans Hofmann, whose abstract expressionist work portrays depth in the picture plane through what he calls ‘push pull’. “Only from the varied counter play of push and pull, and from its variation in intensities, will plastic creation result. … Push is answered by pull, and pull by push.” […]
I am looking for ways to better express myself visually. I have been studying the work and teachings Paul Klee and am just now beginning to study Hans Hofmann’s philosophy and art. The library came through with my copy of Hans Hofmann by William C. Seitz,(1972 Reprint edition, Published for The Museum of Modern Art, by Arno Press). […]
It must have been in 5th grade when we all had to get our eyes checked. All I remember is standing in the middle of this darkened room in the basement and some man I couldn’t see asked me to read letters in this bright spot on the wall. There must have been something in my […]
I’ve been trying to apply the concept of ‘push pull’, a term coined by the abstract expressionist painter and teacher, Hans Hofmann, to my watercolor experiments. As explained by The Art Story website: “The Hofmann School taught the basic principles of ‘push/pull,’ which stressed the importance of applying and combining opposing forces in one’s art, whether these […]
