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GERHARD RICHTER (b. 1932)
Drei Kerzen
signed, numbered 513-1 and dated 1982 on the reverse
oil on canvas
49 1/4 by 59 1/2 in. 125.1 by 151.1cm.
PROVENANCE
Sperone Westwater Fischer Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1983
EXHIBITED
New York, Sperone Westwater Fischer Gallery, Gerhard Richter, 1983
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art; Washington D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gerhard Richter: Paintings, April 1988-May 1989, pl. 22, p. 67,
illustrated in color
LITERATURE
Jürgen Harten, ed., Gerhard Richter: Bilder Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne, 1986, p. 274, illustrated
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, et al., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue RaisonnE, Vol. III, Bonn, 1993, cat. no. 513-1, illustrated in color
Gerhard Richter's contribution to the theory and practice of painting in the second half of the Twentieth Century marks him as one of the most influential artists of his time. Arguably, more than any other artist, Richter has developed the art of painting; blurring the boundaries between form and content, between Sign and Signifier on the canvas. Richter's
concern was not so much how to make marks, but why one should develop such marks in the context of an antagonism between representation and re-presentation. The only reality was not the image, but the process. For Richter, painting became an
ethereal exploration, with the canvas as the laboratory; his tools thus became the means to conjure some of the most magical images of this period.
This intellectual and painterly elasticity was born from the radical developments of his monochromatic Photo-Paintings in the 1960s. Essentially, Richter created 'photographs out of paint', not through an attempt to make a representation more or less 'artistic', but, as he has said, "I...equalize, neutralize what is depicted, attempt to retain the anonymous gloss of the photograph, to replace the craftsmanly-artistic with the technical" (Gerhard Richter in Roald Nasgaard, Gerhard Richter, London 1988, p. 49). During the mid-1960s, Richter also explored the relationship between pure colour as form, and his Farbfelden are some of the most provocative paintings of that period.
Considering his initial focus on the distilled image, and the later focus on colour contrasts, (as well as a
continued interest in the process of mark making as is evident in the Abstract Paintings) it is no surprise that Richter executed colour Photo-Paintings. The dialogue between painterly abstraction and romanticized realism related to photography is best exemplified in the series of 32 works depicting skulls and candles, executed by Richter between 1982 and 1983. Drei Kerzen, the largest of these examples and the only canvas to depict three candles, must be seen as a seminal work in Richter's oeuvre.
Richter's choice of candles as a subject enacts an engagement with art history. Like the skull, the candle is a typical Vanitas symbol that evokes the flow of time and mortality. Here, three candles dominate the composition, tall and bright, but they will diminish, fading all signs of life. The allegorical potency of this work is compounded in the positioning of the three candles. Like Rembrandt's famous etching of the three trees, the candles, combined with Richter's delicious interplay of light and shade, is reminiscent of the Crucifixion scene. This sense of fate links the Candle paintings to the Romantic overtones first expressed in Richter's Nature paintings at the end of the 1960s. For Richter, the Romantics endowed the artist with the power to renegotiate the past through the Sublime of nostalgic motifs. By exploring the past, one is able to awaken one's sense of the present.
Richter's Drei Kerzen cannot therefore be read literally as a Still Life. The image becomes the vehicle for a more interesting investigation into the veracity of 'realistic images', and an exploration into the role of light in painting. As Kate Linker noted in 1983, "The presentation of single, double and triple lighted candles, placed close to the viewer and 'shot' against gray-green interior backgrounds, and undoubtedly made according to Richter's recipe technique of photo-slide projection approach the photograph's styleless, 'imagistic' look. (ArtForum, April 1983, p. 71). Indeed, the present work is a masterpiece of tonal interplay. Richter is able to create the subtlest chromatic changes that contribute to the overall dynamism and coherency of the entire composition. The gray-green horizontal shadow of the lower half of the composition turns into veils of darker gray, and then slowly graduates into shades of sienna brown and then, eventually, black. Just as the candle will eventually extinguish, so colour here eventually turns in on itself, becoming pure, unadulterated shade. The fluid, liquid brushwork, so tightly controlled by Richter, is mesmerizing. This extremely sophisticated background provides the most wonderful backdrop to the three candles: umbras and penumbras of pure light are allowed to dance across the canvas, fixing the composition as a whole, both as a painting and as an intellectual point de depart.
Drei Kerzen is an integral work in Richter's oeuvre. This wonderfully poised and precise canvas, executed with a stunning refinement of technique and a rare impact of vision, stands out as a masterpiece. In terms of its embodiment of Richter's determination to expand painting as a genre to new dimensions, whilst raising important questions of perception and conception, Drei Kerzen is a crucial work to any understanding of the artist's artistic and intellectual predilections and
further confirms Richter's place as
a pivotal figure in Post-War art. Above: Gerhard Richter: Atlas, Kerzen, 1982, no. 398