As is well known, painting reflects the social environment and the spirit of age including the value and the philosophy of the society. Artists realize it by visualizing the internal consciousness through their personal life and knowledge. The most people agree that the dominant social environment these days are the forth industrial revolution based on the information technology combined with the capitalism and the material universalism.
This work studies on Gerhard Richter visual approach method and the expandability of his works by examining his distinct techniques and processes in his various works including pictures and paintings. Main study is to research on the meaning of the methods and subjects that might be intensionally selected in his works, which is related to the change of individual consciousness which is different from the traditional fixed idea. To this end, author investigates the historical situation of his growth and the historical background of the modernist painting and ideology which affected on his painting capability. By analysing the concepts, the characters and the expression methods of Richter abstract painting, his influence to the modern painting is derived.
Gerhard Richter experienced the communism and the socialism before he moved to the western Germany from the eastern part. He came in to contact to the new trend of the modern art such as Informel, Nouveau Realisme, Fluxus, Pop Art when he studied at Dusseldorf. Richter specially was enchanted with the anti-aesthetic of the pop-art and created the picture-painting as a results of the desire to build a new painting area in order to go forward to the modern painting from the classical painting. This work therefore examines the trend of the art in Germany at that time and studies how he created the picture-painting area.
Richter can be categorized to a neo-expressionist because his works are finished with very smooth expression which is distinguished from those of expressionists. He can also be regarded as an intermediate artist between the modernism and the post-modernism when we examine his works such as the "Color-Chart" which is started at 1966, the "Gray-painting" at 1968 and the "Abstraction" at 1972.
In the 1980s, some artists began to return to the figurative painting because they had been tired of the reductive strictness of the conceptual art and the cold formal logic. In 1982, the artists of Berlin tried to restore the narrative of painting by inheriting the tradition of German expressionism in the 20th century and expressing the suppressed feelings in a new way. American critics and writers strongly argue that the return to painting is an anachronistic retreat. These forces were tensely at odds, but the neo-expressionist craze disappeared sharply around 1985; in the late 1980s Richter began to emerge internationally.
Richter's painting has made a new history of painting by sticking to his identity as a painter even in a series of times and making his own work in his own unique way. He insisted on the planarity of painting and assumed it as an essential element in the situation of the times when the crisis of painting was specifically discussed.
This work therefore studies the pictorial plane meaning of Richter's painting by comparing classical painting with his. The study also aims to find the possibility of another painting through Richter, who has created a new way of modern painting, by examining the process and solution which was resulted in photograph. In addition, whis work studies the Richter's influence on contemporary art and his painting world.
Chapter 1 clarifies the purpose of this study which is to analyze Gerhard Richter's works and introduces the method of study to find out the de-painting meaning of various abstract paintings and the pictorial intentions that are blurred and vague. Chapter II introduces the background of modernism and its ideological characteristics and examines the appearance and meaning of postmodernism from modernism which influenced to Richter's works. In chapter III, Gerhard Richter's life and the historical background are reviewed. In chapter IV, author studies the concepts and characteristics of Richter's abstract painting and interprets the characteristics of his works.
In chapter V, author divides Gerhard Richter's various works into stages to confirm the world of works. At the first stage, we examine the meaning of his de-painting and the meaning of visual communication of blurred and ambiguous feelings through the borrowing of images of everyday photography. The Second is to look for the meaning of color in geometric color charts and mirror works and the visual meaning of new gaze given by the spatial division of mirror. The third is to analyze the mental world of monochromium gray painting, and the forth is to study the discourse of horizontal, vertical concept and scalability shown in digital strip painting. At the final stage, the concept of paint stacking and the meaning of new abstract painting which appears by squeegee technique are studied. Chapter VI introduces the influence of Richter's abstract painting on modern times. In chapter VII, the thesis is summarized as a conclusion.