It comes with no surprise, that the first artist I am introducing on this blog is Gerhard Richter. Richter is not only one of my favorite artists, but also one of the most talented artists I know.
I think great art has the power to function as inspiration for other great art works. Not that I think artists should "copy" other artist's ideas. I just believe that seeing original art can initiate creative thought processes from which one develops own ideas. Gerhard Richter is probably one of the most inspiring artists I know.
Richter is a very famous, German artist who's exhibition "Panorama"I visited some time ago in Berlin. Richter is significant because of the vastness of his body of work. When scanning Gerhard Richter's website, one finds a seemingly infinite number of works, that are organized into categories, titled "Candles", "Astronomy", "Women", "Landscapes" "Old Master Inspired", and more. This alone hints at the incredible variation within Richter's artworks. He produces both purely abstract as well as photo-like realistic paintings, but he also uses various materials in his art, such as photography and other digital media. I found his abstract works the most interesting, but then I am generally more interested in abstract art.
One of his strikingly realistic pieces is called "Betty". In this piece, as in others, Richter displays his immense skill in painting. This piece is especially significant, because the girl in the painting is Richters daughter Betty. She has her face turned away from him, but the grey background behind her is actually one of Richter's paintings. So while she is facing away from Richter as a person, she is looking at Richter in his art.
Richter painted numerous pieces of clouds, that are so realistic looking, that it is hard to believe they are painted.Clouds in front of a deep blue sky; it seems like a photograph taking on a warm summer day. In 2013, on of the cloud pieces (shown below) was sold for 11,893,675 USD.
His seascapes, similar to the clouds, are also extremely realistic. I find this piece, "Seascape" (Brown, Troubled, 1969, especially significant, because it captures the special atmosphere of the sea when the sun beams on the water at dawn, or maybe just before sundown. Richter also painted numerous diffferent pieces with the sea as the subject, and they are all magnificent. Just imagine how a room would change, if such a piece as the one below were to hang in it?
Apart from the realistic pieces, Richter also creates a broad amount of abstract art. One of the abstract series he created are his grey pieces. What I think is fascinating about them, is the fact that in the way they are carried out (thick, aggressive strokes across a large canvas, in this case), and yet they are brilliant and unique. Through just the energetic movement of the paint brush, Richter creates lively emotion in his pieces, even though he only uses various grey tones and displays no particular subject.
The works that impress me most however, are his wild, large and colorful abstract paintings. I am especially drawn to these works because they seem to overflow with paint and energy.He creates these pieces using the technique that can be seen in the first picture of this post; by first painting layers of paing and then scraping the paint across the canvas using the tool in his hands. This technique is a trade mark of Richter's abstract works. One can immediately recognize his abstract pieces because of it.
"Untitled" , 1989, oil on colour photograph
"Wolke", 1976, Oil on Canvas
"Grey", 1970, Oil on Canvas
"Abstract Painting", 2004, oil on canvas
"Seascape", 1970
"Betty", 1988, oil on canvas
Overall, what I really like about Richter's art is that he doesn't follow a specific style; he just creates what comes to his mind in any style he likes - while other artists tend to stick to a single line. This combination of style, material, technique and color is what makes his art so breath-taking and successful. While I talked about some of his pieces here, I merely touched on the body of work that Richter has produced in his life. If you wish to find out more about this artist, I recommend you visit his homepage:http://www.gerhard-richter.com/, or you take a look at the documentary that was made about him by Corinna Belz:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF6EluMNR14.
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