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            Back in the thirties through the fifties, émigré Bavarian artist Hans Hoffman taught his famous push/pull theory of composition to many students at the Art Students League and at his own school in New York. The concept suggested a dynamic spatial quality of asymmetrical balance where different forms of contrast – color, shape, direction – in a composition brought static elements to life. Intuited rather than measured (like the golden section, for example), Hoffman’s theory called on an inner sensitivity that could be developed with practice. Many of his own abstract paintings read like primers of his theory.

            The idea of contrast was certainly not unique to Hoffman and had been explored in Western (and Eastern) painting for centuries. Hoffman gave the idea a different psychological twist by using the verbs push and pull to express his thinking. The idea, though, was not that different from the Oriental concept in brush painting of Host and Guest or Big Brother and Little Sister compositions where a large element is balanced by a smaller one. A sense of attraction is established by placing something small at an appropriate distance from something larger. This is almost like the centrifugal and centripetal forces acting upon an orbiting object and the larger object around which it orbits.

            The idea of push/pull shows up in art in other ways as well. Artists themselves are attracted by certain work or ways of interpreting work and repelled by others. Within the category of realism, for example, some artists gravitate to high definition, as it were, clean lines and well-delineated surfaces, and dismiss simplified, soft-focused, or impressionistic work as unfinished. Those that prefer the latter are often overly critical of the former. Similarly, an attraction response to either abstract or representational work might generate a repulsive response to the other. Some artists enjoy the mystery of vagueness and ambiguity while others choose clarity and lack of ambiguity of highly detailed work.

            This is not to say that push/pull as conceived by Hoffman is only about contrast and opposing forces. It’s more a theory of natural forces at work. Neither did Hoffman only focus on abstract art like his own. He studied nature as did many generations of artists before him and drew from nature’s example in his work just as artists have done for centuries. He recognized push/pull elements at work in the paintings of Rembrandt and Titian and other past masters. He understood that a tree sinks its roots deep into the earth while its branches reach high into the air toward the light. Both are necessary for the health and viability of the tree. Most often art has grown from some similar insight into nature’s workings however simple, complex, or paradoxical they may seem.