Quote

I have no motif, only motivation. I believe that motivation is the real thing, the natural thing, and that the motif is old-fashioned, even reactionary (as stupid as the question about the meaning of life)

Gerhard Richter

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gerhard Richter
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: February 9
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
University Teacher
Visual Artist
Elbflorenz
Gehede Lixite
Geruharuto Rihitā
Gerd Richter
Even
Motivation
Thing
Meaning
Believe
Painting
Life
Stupid
Motif
Question
Motifs
Natural
Reactionary
Art
Reactionaries
Real
Fashioned

More quotes by Gerhard Richter

Image
To believe, one must have lost God. To paint, one must have lost art.
Gerhard Richter
Image
All photographs are far more important than any painting.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I don't believe in the reality of painting, so I use different styles like clothes: it's a way to disguise myself.
Gerhard Richter
Image
If I don't know what's coming - that is, if I have no hard-and-fast image, as I have with a photographic original - then arbitrary choice and chance play an important part.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I am ridiculously old-fashioned.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I am thankful that the church exists, thankful that it has done such great things, giving us laws, for instance - 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not', and established Goodness and Evil. That's what all religions do, and as soon as we try to replace them, worldly religions like fascism and communism take over.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Art shows us how to see things that are constructive and good, and to be an active part of that.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Painting pictures is simply the official, the daily work, the profession, and in the case of the watercolours I can sooner afford to follow my mood, my spirits.
Gerhard Richter
Image
The photograph is the only picture that can truly convey information, even if it is technically faulty and the object can barely be identified. A painting of a murder is of no interest whatever but a photograph of a murder fascinates everyone.
Gerhard Richter
Image
My paintings are wiser than I am.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I often need a long time to understand things, to imagine a painting I might make.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Well, I don't believe there are subjects that can't be painted, but there are a lot of things that I personally can't paint.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Cage is much more disciplined. He made chance a method and used it in constructive ways I never did that. Everything here is a little more chaotic.
Gerhard Richter
Image
To make a photograph is already the first artificial act.
Gerhard Richter
Image
As far as the surface is concerned - oil on canvas, conventionally applied - my pictures have little to do with the original photograph. They are totally painting (whatever that may mean). On the other hand, they are so like the photograph that the thing that distinguished the photograph from all other pictures remains intact.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Talk about painting: there's no point. By conveying a thing through the medium of language, you change it. You construct qualities that can be said, and you leave out the ones that can't be said but are always the most important.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I never worked at painting as if it were a job it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire to try something.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Turning to the colour-classification methodology: The starting point are the four pure colours red, yellow, green and blue their in-between shades and scales of brightness result in colour schemes containing 16, 64, 256 and 1,024 shades. More colours would be pointless because it wouldn't be possible to distinguish between them clearly.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. ... The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster.
Gerhard Richter