The truly monumental can only come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between parts. Since each thing carries both a meaning of its own and an associated meaning in relation to something else - its essential value is relative. We speak of the mood we experience when looking at a landscape. This mood results from the relation of certain things rather than from their separate actualities. This is because objects do not in themselves possess the total effect they give when interrelated.

Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.

A thought functions only as a fragmentary part in the formulation of an idea.

My aim in painting is to create pulsating, luminous, and open surfaces that emanate a mystic light, in accordance with my deepest insight into the experience of life and nature.

I can't understand how anyone is able to paint without optimism.

Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel.

People say 'Hofmann has different styles'. I have not. I have different moods; I am not two days the same man.