Gerhard Richter, no one will deny it, is a master painter (Maler Meister). He is known for his many back-and-forths between mimēsis and abstraction. In the French press it is often said that Richter nagivates between “abstraction” and “figuration”. But this and old tune. The term “figuration”, quite outdated by the way, gives the idea of ​​a faithful representation of reality, but we have understood that the portrait of the Duke of Wellington (a famous example given by Nelson Goodman in 1968) does not resemble his portrait painted by Goya. To “see” or recognize the identity of the Duke, I must first disregard the fact that the “real” Duke is not made of paint, and furthermore, that his body is not as thin as a canvas. In fact, we have decidedly not yet sufficiently understood that, since there is no “natural” art, there can only be abstract art. The question, therefore, does not oscillate between “abstraction” and “figuration,” but between representation and depiction; and even, to tell the truth, if we really want to narrow the subject down; everything starts from depiction. As the philosopher John Dilworth (2010) writes:   

Any adequate account of depiction must explain how two distinct elements — namely, the purely physical design features of the surface of a picture, and the subject matter that is seen in the picture — are related to each other in our experience of pictures as pictures.

If Dilworth mentions “two distinct elements”, it is because he is referring to the duality, even the dyad, posed by the philosopher Richard Wollheim (1968), between “seeing-as” and “seeing-in”. An example was given long ago by none other than Leonardo, when he suggested the pictorial mode to the aspiring painter, one remembers, faced with a simple wall. Either one sees it for what it is (this is “seeing-as”), with its crevices, its shadows, its shapes; or one sees scenes of horses and battles (this is “seeing-as-that”). I do not need to resort to my imagination to akckowledging a wall in front of me. In the same way, if I paint this wall, from a realistic point of view, no one will be able to believe that it is a “real” wall. To simplify what seems complex, we can say that the depiction can be representational, or non-representational; or even both at the same time. Example:

Richter, as we will see later, is not concerned with a difference that might exist between realism and abstraction; because for him (and he is of course not the only one), everything starts from an abstraction (and he is well aware that, in doing so, he is only stating the obvious). Take the image above, “Abstraktes Bild”, literally, “Abstract Image”. You look at the image, and you say to yourself: “it’s abstract”, “it’s an abstract painting”, since, apparently, we don’t grasp anything identifiable nor recognizable in here. However, looking for a while, we discern a certain sense of depth, therefore of volume, and even a certain sort of figure, of form, almost in the middle of the canvas. You don’t see anything? Come on (Entschuldigung Gerhard) I’ll help you:

Richter uses masses, which nevertheless evoke a depth, even a cube, and therefore a room. We see its interior. Thus, the oblique bottom line indicates the third dimension (it’s really a painter’s trick as old as Antiquity, but it still works). To the left of our leftmost vertical line, we can see a slanted wall — and Richter always likes (2018) slanted walls, as in “Grauer Spiegel” (here). Good. What about this mass in the “middle”? It stands out from the others because it is the only one to show colors — green, yellow, white — absent elsewhere. We also note that colors of the same family aggregate, which contributes to the idea that a form is emerging here that is distinct from the others, which are therefore, shall we say, less organic. So, is this an abstract image or one from a thermal camera?, which wouldn’t even take away from its abstract “becoming”. Looking at Richter’s paintings and devices, one might think that what has always interested him is diffraction, which, as the standard definition goes, is the “phenomenon by which light rays undergo a deflection when they graze the edges of an opaque body. Diffraction of light waves”. Except that, with Richter, it is the matter that diffracts; the illusion is not optical, although it can, very often with Richter, be related to it. This diffraction of matter is obtained by the technique of the large scraper, which Richter often uses to fragment the painting in space, as can be seen here:  

It’s easy to find videos on the Internet showing Richter at work, literally scraping the paint onto the support. Here, it is not the brush that informs the material, it is the scraper. And, unlike many other literal abstract (non-representational) works, which often give off a feeling of mysticism, softness, even inanity in other artists, Richter’s scraped painting gives off a certain violence. It is as if, literally, Richter were scraping the real; and thus, overflowing the painting; because it “says” something. Richter, externalist painting. In fact, with Richter, diffraction is staged in two dimensions (we have just seen this), but also from the four (3D + time), as here:

Notice how “Grauer Spiegel” (on the wall) is disrupted in terms of the decomposition of volumes and the division of planes. What is this due to? To this structure:

The structure-sculpture “3 Scheiben” (literally, “3 slices”) could evoke the famous window in Alberti’s work, but here we have three glass panels and it is therefore no longer a question of projecting (“tracing”) reality onto the painting, but of disrupting it, of modifying perception. “3 Scheiben” is a device for slicing and virtualizing in paintings, and in mirrors (made of “enamelled float glass”). It is therefore a Diffraction Machine.

 

Excerpts from Richter’s insightful remarks for our purposes:

PS. Then your paintings ofobjects are really abstract paintings?
G.R. Possibly, except that I don’t know what abstract is. I just think we distort and cut ourselves off from a lot of things by having a name for everything; we have been too ready to define reality and then treat it as done with. (Interview with Peter Sager, 1972, In 2009)

I.L. What should we think about the parallels between abstraction and realism in your work?
G.R. The parallels don’t really exist. For me, there’s no difference between a landscape and an abstract painting. The term ‘realism’, to my mind, has no meaning. I refuse to limit myselfto one single option — to an exterior resemblance or to a unity of style that cannot exist. (Interview with Irmeline Lebeer, 1973, In 2009)

The composition of different forms, colours, structures, proportions, harmonies, etc. comes out as an abstract system analogous to music. Itis thus an artificial construct, as logical in its own terms as any natural one, except that it is not objective. This system draws its life from analogies with the appearance of nature, but it would instantly be destroyed if any object were identifiably represented within it. (Gerhard Richter, “Notes, 1981”, In 1993) 

 

^Refs/ Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art. An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. USA, 1968 /// John Dilworth, “Depictive Seeing and Double Content”, In Catharine Abell & Katerina Bantinaki, Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction, Oxford University Press, 2010 /// Richard Wollheim Art and its Objects, [1968], 2nd ed., Cambridge, UK, 1980 /// Gerhard Richter. Writings, 1961-2007, edited by Dietmar Elger and Hans Ulrich Obrist, D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., New York /// Gerhard Richter. The Daily Practice of Painting Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Translated from the German by David Britt, The MIT Press.Anthony d’Offay Gallery London, 1993 [2002] 

Cover: Gerhard Richter, “Abstraktes Bild” [Part], 2001, oil on Alu-Dibond, 65 x 65 cm, Courtesy Galerie Zwirner, Paris