Quote

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

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
Painting
Officials
Cases
Afford
Simply
Mood
Spirit
Pictures
Work
Profession
Daily
Official
Case
Spirits
Follow
Sooner

More quotes by Gerhard Richter

Image
In 1981, I think, for the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf. Before that I designed a mirror room for Kasper König's Westkunst show, but it was never built. All that exists is the design - four mirrors for one room.
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
If the abstract paintings show my reality, then the landscapes and still-lifes show my yearning.
Gerhard Richter
Image
The political topicality of my October paintings means almost nothing to me, but in many reviews it is the first or only thing that arouses interest, and the response to the pictures varies according to current political circumstance. I find this rather a distraction.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Only about one per cent of my paintings show family members. Do they help me deal with problems? It's likely that these problems can only be depicted. But photographs, private ones and others, keep appearing that fascinate me so much that I want to paint them. And sometimes the real meaning these images have for me only becomes apparent later.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I would like to try to understand what is. We know very little, and I am trying to do it by creating analogies. Almost every work of art is an analogy.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I am ridiculously old-fashioned.
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
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
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
Image
Maybe we didn't even have a chance. The message of American Pop Art was so powerful and so optimistic. But it was also very limited, and that led us to believe that we could somehow distance ourselves from it and communicate a different intention.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I go to the studio every day, but I dont paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things.
Gerhard Richter
Image
How could one be in this world without feeling dismayed by it? Even if one paints flowers and gingerbread.
Gerhard Richter
Image
The smudging makes the paintings a bit more complete. When they're not blurred, so many details seem wrong, and the whole thing is wrong too. Then smudging can help make the painting invincible, surreal, more enigmatic - that's how easy it is.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Not the victims of any specific ideology of the left or of the right, but of the ideological posture as such. This has to do with the everlasting human dilemma in general: to work for a revolution and fail.
Gerhard Richter
Image
It's that same quality I've been talking about. It's neither contrived, nor surprising and smart, not baffling, not witty, not interesting, not cynical, it can't be planned and it probably can't even be described. It's just good.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Based on mixtures of the three primary colours, along with black and white, I come up with a certain number of possible colours and, by multiplying these by two or four, I obtain a definite number of colour fields that I multiply yet again by two, etc. But the complete realization of this project demands a great deal of time and work.
Gerhard Richter
Image
I pursue no intentions, no directions I have no program, no style and no mission.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Without form, communication stops... without form, you have everybody burbling on to themselves, whenever and however, things that no one else can understand and - rightly - no one else is interested in.
Gerhard Richter
Image
Theory has nothing to do with a work of art. Pictures which are interpretable, and which contain a meaning, are bad pictures. A picture presents itself as the Unmanageable, the Illogical, the Meaningless.
Gerhard Richter