July 1983.
Title |
July 1983. |
Alternative Title |
July. |
Creator |
Richter, Gerhard (German painter, born 1932) |
Date |
1983 |
Cultural Context |
German European Western European |
Style/Period |
Abstract (fine arts style) Contemporary Postmodern |
Subject |
Abstract paintings Abstract works |
Description |
"In the mid-1980s Richter produced abstract paintings as well as realist 'photo-paintings'. […] he appeared here to be recapitulating the ideological options underpinning postwar modernism in so far as his own transplantation from Eastern to Western Europe had been paralleled by an imperative to favor abstract artistic modes over realist ones. […] Richter's abstractions also appeared to mock the modes of expressionist brushwork blithely revisited by Neo-Expressionist contemporaries. However, Richter complicated matters here by asserting that his abstractions were concerned with expressing the 'transcendental' or 'inexplicable'. […] Looking at July (1983) one needs to be aware that Richter had painted related abstractions in the late 1970s from photographs of his own paintings, but by this point was overlaying free brushwork onto smooth, photo-derived, abstract grounds. The effect is that of looking into some form of photographically illusionistic space, in which brushstrokes, either directly applied or 'depicted' in incongruous scale, usurp the places of figures or landscape features. The Surrealist Salvador Dali once asserted that he wished to make 'hand colored dream photographs'. However, rather than depicting dreams (which are impalpable) Richter paradoxically depicts 'expression', locating it in the lurid photo-reality envisaged by Dali. We are given dizzying access into the very interstices of representation." (Excerpts, pp.217-219) |
Material |
Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas |
Measurements |
250 x 250 cm |
Technique |
Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making) |
Work Type |
Paintings Oil paintings Abstract paintings Abstract works |
Repository |
Private collection |
Source |
Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.218, fig.113) |
Digital Publisher |
University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center |
Format |
image/jpeg |
Digital File Name |
VRC 826-22.jpg |
Rating |
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