I just read another post of Chris Fletcher's about Hofmann. I had been writing to him and it looks like it is written to me. It is very clear to me that he is intensely involved in "Good painting". That is, how to make a painting full and resolved. It certainly is true that Hofmann was teaching that. In class, though Hofmann always taught only drawing from the model. Painting crits were after the fact and on Saturday. He had lots of ideas about painting and color, but not while you were working. Everyone in his class was trying to make good paintings, including me. And I think it is probably a necessity for every young artist to have the power not only to do that, but to do that in their own way. Being given too much formal truth on a platter rather than struggling for it yourself is probably bad for anyone. Art is not, and should not be humdrum. There is a challenge and we each have to work it out. When we are ready for it, suddenly some idea which we never understood [or better yet never could accept] suddenly falls into place. Having been taught Hofmann's formal means, I found it hard to continue to believe in, until I tried to teach it, and suddenly it all made sense again. It has ever since. It is probably just as well for Chris to approach it slower through his own painting. To get it in the context of your own pictorial ideas is much better than to get it either in works which are derivative or generic.
Love,
Gabriel
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