Gerhard richter's creative method

Faced with so many artistic trends, richter chose a unique creative method, that is, photo-based painting. He is based on photos, but not completely reproduced; He didn't completely copy the photos, but he didn't collage them either. Artists reinterpret photos with a gray color (some photos are originally black and white), and often put two contradictory techniques (rough and meticulous) in the same work when drawing photos. Ignoring the details of the original photo is one of the means that artists often use, blurring the photo while ignoring the details. Refusing to use collage in his works is the difference between his works and pop art. In pop art, although artists also create on the basis of photos and images, their use of collage combination far exceeds their respect for photos. Hamilton's masterpiece "What makes today's life so beautiful and so different" is a collage master; Warhol's canned Campbell Soup and Coca-Cola embody the infinite juxtaposition principle of pop art.

Richter's works are quite different from MalcolmMorley's photo realism and hyperrealism's surrealism, ignoring the details of photos and putting different creative techniques together to knead the works. This table created by the artist in 1962 is not the first photo-based work, but it shows the creative tendency of juxtaposing two descriptive techniques in the same work. The same creative method is also reflected in the work stag. The artist uses two different descriptions in different spaces of his works: the deer that has been blurred and the Woods outlined with exquisite lines form a strong contrast. In Uncle Devin Lu and other works, richter adopted the method of fuzzy processing. He attributed the origin of this method to Warhol and pointed out the technical differences between them: "(Warhol) used screen printing and photography, while I used mechanical erasure skills."

Gerhard richter Mustang Stafford Canvas 88x 150cm 1964

By focusing on the dialogue with photos, richter discussed the relationship between photos, painting and reality. He has no interest in the surface reality recorded in the contrast film, but he is very sensitive to the authenticity of the reality behind the photo. However, the means he used were not emotional, but unusually calm, rational and restrained. If we only look at some of richter's works, most people may think that he is a political artist, expressing his criticism of German Nazis and World War II. In fact, people can draw these conclusions from some of his works, such as Marianne in Menstruation and Mr. Hendi, which are all related to World War II. But if we make a judgment based on these, people will misinterpret the artist's real creative intention. The starting point of his creation is just the opposite of the obvious political attitude, but he emphasizes the neutral attitude towards all events, without praise or criticism, without likes and dislikes, and tries to reduce the personal attitude contained in his works as much as possible. Obviously, Li Xite and Cage have the same goal. Are closely related to Duchamp's Zen. The concept of "nothing" in Zen is the potential standard of surfing school activities headed by Cage. However, Richter thinks he is different from Cage. He thinks Cage's creation is more organized and regular, that is to say, Cage knows what he is doing, but he doesn't. He relies more on his inner intuition.

For Richter, photos are the best medium to express this artistic purpose. The lens is impersonal, only plays the role of recording, and is objective to some extent. Moreover, he thinks that amateur photographers sometimes take better photos than professional photographers, so he prefers snapshots. In the process of transforming photos into paintings, what artists should do is not to make "photos similar to paintings, but to make paintings closer to photos".

In the photos, richter alienated himself from the traditional painting criticism system, because the photos had no style and seldom mixed with the artist's subjective emotions. At the same time, when artists create works, they also try to reduce the material properties of the works, so that their surfaces are smooth and their shapes are more like photos. Through these impersonal images, richter did not explain his cynical creative motives to the audience, but showed the artist's naive nature and inner sensitivity again and again. Before painting the series "1977 10/0 18", richter's figurative works always gave people the feeling of indifference and no emotion. His topics range from boring toilet paper and kitchen stools to community streets to people or things with political backgrounds. In short, they involve people and things in all aspects of life. The artist has repeatedly claimed that he has no standard when choosing pictures, and what kind of pictures he chooses is unpredictable, which leads to the diversity of pictures in his works.

Robert tried to ask richter the criteria for choosing pictures, but there was no result. Questioning a photographer's selection criteria has gradually become a pseudo-question, and people can't get an exact answer. Because the choice of image may be related to the artist's specific state of mind at a certain stage, of course, it does not rule out that the regularity of the theme of the artist's works can be found due to long-term artistic creation, but it may also come entirely from the artist's unconsciousness, that is, richter's inner intuition.