It isn't necessary to make things large to make them monumental; a head by Giacometti one inch high would be able to vitalize this whole space. - Hans Hofmann

The knowledge of reality, achieved by means of the complete sensory equipment, must be expressed artistically in terms of a medium which appeals to the memory of all sensory experience — but only through the eye.

Monumentality is an affair of relativity. 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.

Then [speaking of his loosely figurative work of the 1930's, in Germany] I was still under nature, not that I was imitating it; now I am above nature. But everything comes from nature, I too am part of nature; my memory comes from nature, too.