Schweizer Alpen II - B1

Much like Schweizer Alpen II - A2 and Schweizer Alpen II - B2, this colour serigraph on cardboard print is a bold, hard-edged treatment of the humble landscape painting. Characterised by areas of light and dark, negative space works to create a sense of the sharp, alpine ridges captured by the original photograph after which this image was made. Using broad, gestural strokes and small areas of black paint, Richter breaks up the surface of the landscape, the diagonal orientation of which references an aerial or ‘divine’ view of the world. Difficult to make out, this bewildering topography appears to vacillate between realism and the brush marks product of Richter’s own hand.

Speaking to the profound influence of the West German cultural scene on a young Richter, who had only recently escaped from the Communist East in 1961, the work is rich with echoes of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Combining abstraction and the natural world, its philosophical and art historical remit distances the viewer from the confines of traditional representation, allowing them to explore the fact that contemporary society lacks the spiritual foundation that supported canonical art forms, such as romantic painting. Commenting on the relationship between art and the spiritual, Richter once said: “We have lost the feeling of “God’s omnipresence in nature”. For us, everything is empty.”