拍品專文
Richter began using photographs as supporting visual material for his painting in the late 1950s, but it was only during the 1960s that the photographs themselves became a direct source in his paintings. This method is not unlike that adopted by the likes of Warhol or Litchenstein, although Richter was not concerned with the mass-produced images of advertising and entertainment that one usually associates with Pop Art, but with anonymous scenes from everyday life; be they portraits or snapshots from family albums, or photographs from magazines or newspapers.
"Richter's original motivation in turning to photographs was a willful act of negation. He chose to copy photographs primarily to escape the alternative options for making art that were available in the 1960s....To hit on the solution of copying photographs, to select and paint them like ready-mades, outside aesthetic delectation, against habit, indifferent to their artistic visual worth or the insignificance of their subject matter, was to find a way to work that had nothing to do with received ideas about art and the old problems of subjectivity and creativity, colour composition, or formal invention. A photograph with 'no style, no concept no judgement'..rescued from the burden of inherited tradition, and from the alternative traps of prevailing aesthetics and ideologies around him. The photograph was necessary 'to correct my seeing, to avoid getting caught in stylization, to forget habits and background, and paint against my will.'
In retrospect, of course, it emerges that however commonplace the subject matter of the Photo Paintings, it does not leave us as indifferent as Richter may have originally projected and cannot be treated merely as neutral ground." (Roald Nasgaard, Gerhard Richter, London 1988, p.40)
"Zwei Frauen mit Torte" is a fine example of Richter's oeuvre of these years. It records a typical, everyday scene which could easily have been lifted from a magazine or popular journal, catching two women in a doorway in conversation. The slightly streaked, out-of-focus appearance is characteristic of Richter. The blurred effect emphasises the illusory quality of the image, and thus the painting appears as a fleeting impression. "I do not blur my pictures to make a representation seem more artistic through lack of clarity or to give my style an individual note," claimed the artist, "I rather equalize, neutralize what is depicted, attempt to retain the anonymous gloss of the photograph, to replace the craftsmanly-artistic with the technical."(ibid., p.49)
"Zwei Frauen mit Torte", like so many of his photographic works, has a monochromatic tint which no doubt imitates the source illustration. Richter's method of reproducing these very ordinary images from photographs, creates paintings of great subtlety. The fluid brushwork, combined with the muted tonality, gives the work a slightly disturbing, ghostly quality.
"Richter's original motivation in turning to photographs was a willful act of negation. He chose to copy photographs primarily to escape the alternative options for making art that were available in the 1960s....To hit on the solution of copying photographs, to select and paint them like ready-mades, outside aesthetic delectation, against habit, indifferent to their artistic visual worth or the insignificance of their subject matter, was to find a way to work that had nothing to do with received ideas about art and the old problems of subjectivity and creativity, colour composition, or formal invention. A photograph with 'no style, no concept no judgement'..rescued from the burden of inherited tradition, and from the alternative traps of prevailing aesthetics and ideologies around him. The photograph was necessary 'to correct my seeing, to avoid getting caught in stylization, to forget habits and background, and paint against my will.'
In retrospect, of course, it emerges that however commonplace the subject matter of the Photo Paintings, it does not leave us as indifferent as Richter may have originally projected and cannot be treated merely as neutral ground." (Roald Nasgaard, Gerhard Richter, London 1988, p.40)
"Zwei Frauen mit Torte" is a fine example of Richter's oeuvre of these years. It records a typical, everyday scene which could easily have been lifted from a magazine or popular journal, catching two women in a doorway in conversation. The slightly streaked, out-of-focus appearance is characteristic of Richter. The blurred effect emphasises the illusory quality of the image, and thus the painting appears as a fleeting impression. "I do not blur my pictures to make a representation seem more artistic through lack of clarity or to give my style an individual note," claimed the artist, "I rather equalize, neutralize what is depicted, attempt to retain the anonymous gloss of the photograph, to replace the craftsmanly-artistic with the technical."(ibid., p.49)
"Zwei Frauen mit Torte", like so many of his photographic works, has a monochromatic tint which no doubt imitates the source illustration. Richter's method of reproducing these very ordinary images from photographs, creates paintings of great subtlety. The fluid brushwork, combined with the muted tonality, gives the work a slightly disturbing, ghostly quality.