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Quote by Gerhard Richter

“I've never found anything to be lacking in a blurry canvas. Quite the contrary: you can see many more things in it than in a sharply focused image. A landscape painted with exactness forces you to see a determined number of clearly differentiated trees, while in a blurry canvas you can perceive as many trees as you want. The painting is more open.”

Quote by Gerhard Richter

Book:Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007
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Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007

Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007 is a comprehensive compilation of the artist's written works over a significant period of his career. The book offers insights into Richter's evolving artistic philosophy, his approach to painting, and his reflections on the role of art in society. It is a valuable resource for those interested in the thoughts and ideas of one of the most influential contemporary artists. more

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Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter

German visual artist known for his unique painting style and diverse creative techniques. Richter's works span a wide range of styles from abstraction to figuration, and his career has spanned over half a century, profoundly influencing contemporary art. more

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“When I first painted a number of canvases grey all over (about eight years ago), I did so because I did not know what to paint, or what there might be to paint: so wretched a start could lead to nothing meaningful. As time went on, however, I observed differences of quality among the grey surfaces - and also that these betrayed nothing of the destructive motivation that lay behind them. The pictures began to teach me. By generalizing a personal dilemma, they resolved it.”

KnowsYearsFirstsArtMightMotivationDifferencesNumbersBehindsQualityTeachPaintingYears AgoLaysPaintEightSurfaceMeaningfulDestructiveGreyBetrayedWretchedDilemma
Author:Gerhard Richter
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“Grey. It makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations: it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make 'nothing' visible.”

WayGivingArtFeelingsPaintingCapacityPhotographInvisibleStatementsColourVisibleAssociationGreyPositivelyEvoke
Book:Gerhard Richter: October 18, 1977
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“To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, noncommitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and the rest, can be real only as an idea, and so all I can do is create a colour nuance that means grey but is not it. The painting is then a mixture of grey as a fiction and grey as a visible, designated area of colour.”

MeanArtI CanIdeasRealCan DoFictionOpinionPaintingShapesAreasAbsenceWelcomeIndifferenceColourVisibleBeing RealGreyMixturesNuance
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“Of course, pictures of objects also have this transcendental side to them. Every object, being part of an ultimately incomprehensible world, also embodies that world; when represented in a picture, the object conveys this mystery all the more powerfully, the less of a 'function' the picture has. Hence, for instance, the growing fascination of many beautiful old portraits.”

WorldArtBeautifulCoursesSidesGrowingMysteryObjectsPaintingFunctionInstancePortraitsFascinationTranscendental
Book:Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007
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“My pictures are devoid of objects; like objects, they are themselves objects. This means that they are devoid of content, significance or meaning, like objects or trees, animals, people or days, all of which are there without a reason, without a function and without a purpose. This is the quality that counts. Even so, there are good and bad pictures.”

PeopleMeanArtReasonPurposeAnimalQualityTreeObjectsPaintingFunctionSignificanceGood And Bad
Author:Gerhard Richter
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“... landscapes or still-lifes I paint in between the abstract works; they constitute about one-tenth of my production. On the one hand they are useful, because I like to work from nature - although I do use a photograph - because I think that any detail from nature has a logic I would like to see in abstraction as well.”

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Book:Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007
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“The grey paintings, for example, a painted grey surface, completely monochromatic - they come from a motivation, or result from a state, that was very negative. It has a lot to do with hopelessness, depression and such things. But it has to be turned on its head in the end, and has to come to a form where these paintings possess beauty. And in this case, it's not a carefree beauty, but rather a serious one.”

ArtEndsStatesFormMotivationResultsCasesExamplePaintingSeriousNegativeSurfaceGreyHopelessnessCarefreeMonochromatic
Book:Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007
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