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| Hans Hoffman |
Understanding Hans Hofmann: Reflections
by Sam Feinstein
edited by Sascha Feinstein
Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Arts
Press, 2018
112 pages; $25.00
ISBN 978-0-944854-64-8
Reviewed by David P. Miller
Sam Feinstein, artist and writer, lived
from 1915-2003. Beginning in 1949, he studied painting with Hans
Hoffmann, the renowned 20th-century painter and teacher
(1880-1966), in Provincetown, Mass. His relationship with Hofmann
developed into a collegial friendship. This book, Understanding
Hans Hofmann, began life as a series of conversations between
Feinstein and his son, Sascha Feinstein, recorded between December
1989 and January 1990. Nearly thirty years after those conversations
took place, we are gifted with a volume of remembrances and insights
into Hofmann’s life, work, and convictions. The text of the
original conversations have been edited and organized into chapters
with thematic focal points. The unity between Hofmann’s approach to
teaching and painting is a persistent emphasis, as is the need to
see Hofmann’s work in relation to his root principles and personal
nature. As the son states, “Our mutual goal for this book was to
present several sides of Hofmann: teacher, painter, friend, critic,
writer, and delightful abuser of the English language” (11).
For years, Hofmann was commonly
regarded as a “great teacher [but] bad painter” (9). Although
this has gradually been overturned, and the value of Hofmann’s art
increasingly understood, there remain gaps in the Hofmann literature.
Sascha Feinstein states that “Even the best accounts of Hofmann and
his painting fail to deliver a sense of who the man really was”
(9), in part due to conceptual/theoretical emphases that obscure the
relationship between his personality, humor and spirit, and the art
itself. Despite Sam Feinstein’s close involvement with Hofmann, his
“retreat from an overly commercial art world” (10) meant that he
removed himself from arenas where his understanding of Hofmann could
have reached a wider audience. The conversations between father and
son eventually served as the medium to bring these observations to
light.
Hofmann’s teaching is mainly
addressed in the chapter titled “The Summer Classes.” Sam
Feinstein discusses how his understanding of Hofmann’s teaching
changed over time. At first, he strongly resisted Hofmann’s
approach: “his methods seemed to me to be the most imposed,
absolutely dictatorial, arbitrary approach to the whole process”
(16). This included drawing on top of the students’ drawings, or
tearing their drawings into four pieces and rearranging them. This
“forceful and seemingly arbitrary approach to teaching [was one]
that many students either misunderstood or were unable to get past”
(14). As time went on, Feinstein came to understand Hofmann’s
teaching style to be based on valid principles, and partially
motivated by the older artist’s characteristically awkward English.
Physical demonstrations, supplemented by verbal remarks, seemed the
most direct and necessary method under these circumstances, however
unnerving. (His often amusing and memorable struggles with English
are recalled in the “Hofmannese” chapter, where Sam Feinstein
mentions that Hofmann’s own writings on art could be misunderstood,
given his idiosyncratic word choices and resistance to revision.)
The “Summer Classes” chapter also
introduces the reader to some of Hofmann’s critical principles,
particularly the interplay between space and form. He regarded it as
essential to transform the two-dimensional space of the canvas into a
work possessing three-dimensional force, rather than representing
three dimensions pictorially. In response to the discoveries of
Einstein, he regarded “space as form … contain[ing] forces that
ultimately made the forms that we see” (18). Forms are not merely
static presences but contain “driving energies.” His students
attempted to grapple with this by, for example, “[shifting] forms
across a flat rectangle to create pictorial space rather than
illusionistic space, to create depth consistent with the flatness of
the medium” (20). This extended to figure drawing, in which
elements such as kneecaps or elbows were not regarded “as fixed
locations but as accumulations of vital energies thrust outward by
inner forces” (21).
This discussion is elaborated in the
chapter, “Hofmann’s Principles.” These had to do with what
Hofmann considered as “three kinds of natures”: the nature of the
individual artist, that of the encompassing world, and that of the
art medium (72). Hofmann’s commitment to the dynamic nature of
two-dimensional space manifested, in particular, in what became known
as his “push/pull” approach, where the interplay of planes and
other forms evoked a sensation of backward and forward movement.
“This would replace the old idea of perspective as being an
illusion of distance” (74) and was complementary to the movement of
the human eye perceiving different layers of depth. Sam Feinstein
again emphasizes the difficulties Hofmann’s English presented for
some students; his teaching could be distorted, in that “a lot of
what got repeated simply emphasized Hofmann’s personality rather
than his concepts” (71). This chapter also touches on a theme
elaborated elsewhere, that of Hofmann’s “two natures.” In his
work, he gradually found ways “to reconcile certain splits within
his own makeup between what he called a dramatic, or lyrical, aspect
to his nature versus what he called a scholarly side” (79). His
active use of squares and rectangles, for example, were positioned in
relation to freer “sweeps and flows of color” (37).
In the chapter, “The Film,” Sam
Feinstein discusses his work shooting the material for the
documentary film Hans Hofmann, showing the artist at work
teaching, painting, and discussing his ideas about art and the
creative process. Although filming began in 1950, and the final
script was developed in 1964, the first showing, at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, was delayed until 1998. Hofmann made a new painting,
“The Window,” during the process of filmmaking. Sam Feinstein
discusses the painting, as an element in the documentary, from
several perspectives. He describes the physical items in Hofmann’s
studio that served as the painting’s material basis and details how
Hofmann’s process moved from direct representation to dynamic
spatial relationships. He notes that, at the time “The Window”
was painted, Hofmann “was still working with colored form rather
than forming with color” (42). Feinstein compares it to the
artist’s later, more mature work, the painting “Rhapsody” in
particular. These are both reproduced in the book’s fine color
plates, making it easy to follow the discussion. Feinstein points out
that his film put emphasis on Hofmann’s teaching principles, as
exemplified through his painting activity, and compares it with other
films about Hofmann, where Hofmann only appears to paint: “you can
see from his brush that he’s not doing anything” (44).
Sam Feinstein
compares Hofmann’s work with that of other painters, particularly
the Abstract Expressionists with which he is often associated. He
finds it “ironic that Hans Hofmann was being called ‘the father
of Abstract Expressionism,’ only because he was so much older than
the other young men practicing it” (58). Feinstein draws contrasts
between Hofmann’s painting and that of Kline and de Kooning, and
does not regard Hofmann as an Abstract Expressionist. For example, in
contrast with the latter group’s typical relationship with the
canvas, he quotes Hofmann (preserving his diction): “It is not what
you do to the canvas. It’s what the canvas doos back”
(95). Feinstein regards Hofmann’s work as having much more in
common with the Fauves, and perhaps unexpectedly compares the
painter’s work to that of Mondrian. Similarly, although Hofmann’s
‘”push and pull” has been discussed in relation to Cubism, “it
actually related more to what Cézanne started with his planes of
color” (75). These discussions are found in various chapters,
particularly “In the Context of Critics and Painters,” where
Feinstein also reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of critic
Clement Greenberg’s evaluations of Hofmann.
Integrated with his reflections on the
teaching, artwork, and principles of Hans Hofmann, Sam Feinstein also
recalls a great deal about the artist’s personal relationships and
the scenes of his times. These are found in the chapter appropriately
titled “Intimacy and Jealousy,” as well as “An Opening of
Landscapes,” which centers on a 1953 show of landscape paintings
done between 1936-1939. The chapter includes Feinstein’s original
catalog essay, and a brief review he wrote for that show.
In the conclusion, “A Final Look,”
Sam Feinstein states, “There is a direct, primal drive that comes
through in [Hofmann’s] work that is not simply gymnastic, not
merely optical; it’s a certain intensity, a life force” (105).
Sascha Feinstein’s presentation of his late father’s memories and
insights makes this clear and is a tribute to both elder men. He and
the Provincetown Arts Press have done us a valuable service with this
book.
