“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann To simplify is to eliminate the unnecessary, allowing what is essential to come forward and find its own voice. In these words, painter Hans Hofmann suggests that subtraction is not really about having less, but about making space for what truly matters to be heard. Although he was speaking within the context of his artistic discipline, I feel his words quietly illuminate the way we live. In the modern, digital age, reaching the “good” increasingly feels like a search for “more.” As everything around us is constantly replaced by something newer and better, we grow accustomed to excess and begin to desire it. We develop an interest in subjects, objects, and content we never truly needed, perhaps because somewhere beneath it all lies the belief that what we already have will not be enough. And so, little by little, we expand our lives in volume, making them increasingly difficult to inhabit. We search for happiness and wellbeing through multiplication, while slowly forgetting the quiet beauty of what is simple, essential, and already enough. Despite all this, I still hold a naive belief that beauty has a way of returning to simplicity, to “less.” I once came across the French expression douceur de vivre, and its meaning made me smile. It speaks of the sweetness found in the simple act of being alive. In its purest form, perhaps it is the quiet pleasure of feeling, “I am alive.” It is a feeling that exists within all of us, yet one from which, strangely, I think we have grown distant. Perhaps the more walls of necessity we build around ourselves, the further we drift from the softness of simply being. Maybe the point is not to create something more beautiful, but to remove the excess that stands between us and what is already beautiful. As I write this, for some reason, Istanbul comes to mind. To me, Istanbul is a city whose beauty becomes increasingly hidden as it grows and accumulates. And yet, its beauty reveals itself in its simplest moments: when we touch the sea, cross one of its bridges, walk along its cobblestone streets and narrow passages, or step onto a ferry. When we look at the city’s crowded, tangled silhouette, somewhere inside, we feel a quiet sadness. Perhaps the excess we see in Istanbul finds its way into us in other forms. Perhaps we, too, build layer upon layer around ourselves, until what is essential becomes harder to see. Could it be that we are turning our own lives into Istanbul?