Schweizer Alpen I - B3

Depicting the light-illuminated slopes to the left of a rocky, mountainous arête, and the dark, plunging depths to its right, Schweizer Alpen I - B3 sees Richter use broad strokes to offer an impressionistic view of his subject matter. Reminiscent of a digital image, each different tone present within the print contrasts with those around it, creating the effect of negative space; this subsequently aligns the print with abstraction. When looking at this print, it is difficult not to infer a sense of Richter’s inspiration by the German Romantic movement and artists such as Caspar David Friedrich.

Utilising a different colour scheme to its close cousin, Shweizer Alpen II - A2, this print is an uncharacteristically loose, expressive rendition of the traditional landscape painting. Why uncharacteristically loose? During the late 1960s, Richter had begun experimenting with the depiction of landscape in what was seen as a thematic departure from his focus on historical portraits, such as the famed Elisabeth II (1966). These early works, which Richter named ‘photo paintings’, were moody, monochromatic, and photorealist in style. Comprising seascapes, such as Seestück I (1969) and like-for-like transcriptions of clouds, such as Wolke (Cloud) (1969), they foretell of Richter’s sustained practice of ‘blurring’ his paintings. This practice is designed  to remove unwanted detail, and to make images look ‘technological’.