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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Cy Twombly Drawings being prepared by Nicola Del Roscio.
"All I know is that painting is useful and important, like music and art in general - that painting is an indispensable necessity of life." (Interview with Doris von Drathen, 1992 in Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995.) Throughout his career, with his ever-changing experimentation with different styles, Richter proved his own dictum to be true over and over again. His Abstraktes Bild of 1995, with its subtle and hypnotic palette and complex layering, is a beautiful, contemplative testament to this. The interplay of color, shape and facture, the essential elements of his abstract works, are on brilliant display here. The palette of Abstraktes Bild of 1995 offers the viewer myriad pleasures in its teasing complexity. Here, as in many of his later abstract paintings "moments of landscape and atmosphere are depicted in an almost illusionistic way," writes Julie Heynen. (Julie Heynen, ed. Gerhard Richter: Bilder 1999. Krefeld: Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, 2000). After the first glance, the black and white rectangular area on the left side of the canvas begins to shimmer with the just a whisper of lavender suggesting a sunrise flickering through snowy woods. These cool, crisp hues of black and white and lavender are juxtaposed against the autumnal tones that, while dominating the physical space of the canvas, perfectly balance the composition, creating harmony out of dissonance. Amidst the array of brown tones of the top layer of subdued gray, black, and chocolate browns, are underlying patches of amber and deep burnt orange, recalling a wooded landscape as the vibrant colors of autumn yield to the stark tones of winter. But this is Richter, so there is more. Glimpses of a gorgeous shade of teal infuse the canvas with an understated verdancy. "The starting point is simple, and seems almost limited," describes Mette Marcus. "A very small number of colors are drawn out in horizontals and verticals. The result is overwhelming and boundless." (Mette Marcus. "The Space of Abstraction" in Gerhard Richter - Image After Image. Michael Juul Holm, Anders Kold, Mette Marcus and Poul Erik Tejner, eds. Humlebaek, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2005, 49).
The color effects at play here are achieved through Richter's remarkable paint handling. The assertive hand of the artist is subsumed in the deceptively smooth surface, obscuring where the labor ends and the mystery of art begins. Using tools beyond the paintbrush such as spatulas and squeegees, he applies layers of paint, scrapes away and layers again, employing a controlled spontaneity. This produces, Heynen says: "the paradox of a scenario which does not exist - except for on the canvas in front of one's eyes. Neither as a whole nor in its details does the scenario depict a piece of reality. Yet it works because it looks like reality." (Heynen) The act of building up paint and scraping it down mimics the creation and destruction of the cycles of nature. An alchemist of artistic magic, Richter, in this tranquil work, has revealed the drama of nature as one season gives way to another, although this may or may not have been the artist's point at all given that in the abstract work that he embarked on in 1976 he pursued an attitude in which intention played not part.
Richter once said that believing in pictures is like believing in God and even more so for abstract work. He told Doris von Drathen in the 1992 interview, "in abstract paintingsthere's not much to see. Here faith plays a bigger part." (Obrist, 232). Paradox and contradiction have been the unifying themes of Richter's spectacular career that has defied categorization and challenged both critics and art historians. In Abstraktes Bild, 1995, the enigma of his genius is clear. While the artist himself claims, "there's not much to see," the opposite is true: there is everything to see in this elusive painting.
"All I know is that painting is useful and important, like music and art in general - that painting is an indispensable necessity of life." (Interview with Doris von Drathen, 1992 in Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995.) Throughout his career, with his ever-changing experimentation with different styles, Richter proved his own dictum to be true over and over again. His Abstraktes Bild of 1995, with its subtle and hypnotic palette and complex layering, is a beautiful, contemplative testament to this. The interplay of color, shape and facture, the essential elements of his abstract works, are on brilliant display here. The palette of Abstraktes Bild of 1995 offers the viewer myriad pleasures in its teasing complexity. Here, as in many of his later abstract paintings "moments of landscape and atmosphere are depicted in an almost illusionistic way," writes Julie Heynen. (Julie Heynen, ed. Gerhard Richter: Bilder 1999. Krefeld: Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, 2000). After the first glance, the black and white rectangular area on the left side of the canvas begins to shimmer with the just a whisper of lavender suggesting a sunrise flickering through snowy woods. These cool, crisp hues of black and white and lavender are juxtaposed against the autumnal tones that, while dominating the physical space of the canvas, perfectly balance the composition, creating harmony out of dissonance. Amidst the array of brown tones of the top layer of subdued gray, black, and chocolate browns, are underlying patches of amber and deep burnt orange, recalling a wooded landscape as the vibrant colors of autumn yield to the stark tones of winter. But this is Richter, so there is more. Glimpses of a gorgeous shade of teal infuse the canvas with an understated verdancy. "The starting point is simple, and seems almost limited," describes Mette Marcus. "A very small number of colors are drawn out in horizontals and verticals. The result is overwhelming and boundless." (Mette Marcus. "The Space of Abstraction" in Gerhard Richter - Image After Image. Michael Juul Holm, Anders Kold, Mette Marcus and Poul Erik Tejner, eds. Humlebaek, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2005, 49).
The color effects at play here are achieved through Richter's remarkable paint handling. The assertive hand of the artist is subsumed in the deceptively smooth surface, obscuring where the labor ends and the mystery of art begins. Using tools beyond the paintbrush such as spatulas and squeegees, he applies layers of paint, scrapes away and layers again, employing a controlled spontaneity. This produces, Heynen says: "the paradox of a scenario which does not exist - except for on the canvas in front of one's eyes. Neither as a whole nor in its details does the scenario depict a piece of reality. Yet it works because it looks like reality." (Heynen) The act of building up paint and scraping it down mimics the creation and destruction of the cycles of nature. An alchemist of artistic magic, Richter, in this tranquil work, has revealed the drama of nature as one season gives way to another, although this may or may not have been the artist's point at all given that in the abstract work that he embarked on in 1976 he pursued an attitude in which intention played not part.
Richter once said that believing in pictures is like believing in God and even more so for abstract work. He told Doris von Drathen in the 1992 interview, "in abstract paintingsthere's not much to see. Here faith plays a bigger part." (Obrist, 232). Paradox and contradiction have been the unifying themes of Richter's spectacular career that has defied categorization and challenged both critics and art historians. In Abstraktes Bild, 1995, the enigma of his genius is clear. While the artist himself claims, "there's not much to see," the opposite is true: there is everything to see in this elusive painting.