S himmering with emerald greens, sapphire blues and piercing reds, Abstraktes Bild from 1994 is an iridescent masterwork from Gerhard Richter’s epic cycle of Abstraktes Bild paintings. A magnificent large-format work, Abstraktes Bild immediately recalls Monet's ground-breaking Nymphéas, and derives from a crucial period of Richter’s long celebrated career. In the early 1990s, the artist had arguably mastered his abstract practice and had been honoured with a series of landmark exhibitions, including the seminal 1991 exhibition at Tate Gallery, London, and the major touring retrospective, Gerhard Richter: Malerei 1962-1993 in Bonn, 1993-1994. Indeed, this period was a t.mes of great personal success and contentment for the artist, which many consider to be reflected in his works from this t.mes such as Abstraktes Bild—its regal, jewel-tone palette; harmonious equilibrium of colour and line; and deft handling of paint which both soothes and excites.

Significantly, the present work was included in the 1995 exhibition, Gerhard Richter: Painting in the Nineties, at Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London; a widely-acclaimed show which showcased works that now reside in important institutional collects ions around the world, including The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; the Artist Room collects ion, Tate, London and National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Gerhard Richter’s unprecedented art of abstraction stands as the ultimate culmination to the epic journey of his career, during which he has ceaselessly interrogated the limits of representation, the nature of perception and the operations of visual cognition. Variously evoking something of Monet’s translation of his garden at Giverny, Rothko’s exuberance of transformative colour, Kline’s structural expressionism, Pollock’s instigation of autonomous composition, and de Kooning’s transferal of the figural to the abstract, Richter’s abstraction is ultimately without comparison. The present work in particular recalls the work of Monet and his Nymphéas, not only in its serene palette of green and blue with its flashes of pinks that summon the images of waterlilies and their reflections, but also in the creation of a spatially ambiguous work that shifts between figuration and abstraction.

Abstraktes Bild is an exquisite demonstration of Richter’s employment of the squeegee, which during the later 1980s became his principle and most highly valued tool with which to create abstract paintings. As the squeegee is dragged across an expanse of canvas, the pressure and speed of Richter’s application of paint ultimately surrenders to the unpredictability of chance in informing the composition. It is this separation of the artist from direct expression that bestows Richter’s paintings with their inherently natural look. The shimmering and harmoniously artful orchestration of paint within Abstraktes Bild oscillates between an act of intense evocation and a simultaneous effacement of painterly form: ingrained within the work’s destructive and unpredictable formation is a reflection of nature itself. As outlined by the scholar Beate Söntgen, Richter’s method “joins the painted traces of the tools together with the layering and intersections of colour to form structures that are figural or landscape in appearance, without ever solidifying into an object that is once again recognizable” (Beate Söntgen, ‘Work on the Picture: The Discretion of Gerhard Richter,’ in: Exh. Cat., Cologne, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Gerhard Richter: Abstrakte Bilder, 2008, p. 37).

Though entirely disconnected from reference in both method and conception, Richter’s abstractions nevertheless evoke natural forms and colour configurations. We cannot help but ascribe meaning to the complexity of their layered compositions. As outlined by the artist: “The paintings gain their life from our desire to recognize something in them. At every point they suggest similarities with real appearances, which then, however, never really materialize” (the artist in Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 267). The subtle layers of pigment and resonant accumulation of colour engendered by the squeegee imparts a textural surface reminiscent of myriad natural forms: sunsets, sunrises, shoals, riptides, and cresting waves—here, the evocation of a calm body of water and the reflection of flora and fauna is undeniable.

Gerhard Richter’s artistic contribution is internationally considered within the highest tier of this era; his inimitably diverse canon evidencing more than five decades of philosophical enquiry into the core natures of perception and cognition. The particularly striking aesthetics of Abstraktes Bild were produced at the height of Richter’s technical development, and the present work can be considered a superlative example of his artistic mastery.

創 於 1994 年的《抽象畫》屬於格哈德・里希特著名的《抽象畫》系列，祖母綠、寶石藍和熾熱的紅互相交織，勾勒出一幅閃爍絢爛的大師傑作。此作尺幅恢弘雄偉，創於里希特漫長而顯赫的藝術生涯中之一個關鍵時期。當時他已經掌握了抽象繪畫技巧，並舉辦了多個意義非凡的展覽，包括 1991 年倫敦泰特美術館的重要回顧展，以及 1993 年至 1994 年在伯恩舉辦的《格哈德・里希特：1962-1993 年作品》大型回顧巡展。的確，這位藝術家在 90 年代初期登上個人事業的巔峰，為他帶來極大滿足感。不少人認為，這種滿足感亦體現在他創於該時期的作品上。《抽象畫》以壯麗的寶石色為主調， 色彩與線條相輔相成，取得微妙平衡。藝術家將顏料處理得靈巧敏捷，使得畫作有安慰人心之效，同時讓人熱血沸騰。

1995 年，此作在倫敦安東尼・德奧菲畫廊（Anthony d’Offay Gallery）舉行的《格哈德・里希特：九十年代畫作》展覽中亮相。展覽贏得盛譽滿滿，而同場展出的其他經典之作，目前均被收藏於世界各地的知名藝術機構，包括克利夫蘭藝術博物館、倫敦泰特美術館的藝術家空間、愛丁堡的蘇格蘭國立美術館、巴塞羅那的凱克薩基金會、東京國立近代美術館，以及澳洲的新南威爾斯美術館。

格哈德・里希特在其傳奇生涯的巔峰時期，創出空前絕後的抽象藝術。在這期間，他不斷審視具象的限制、感知的本質以及視覺的形成，所創之作偶爾會讓人聯想起莫奈對吉維尼花園的動人演繹、羅斯科變革性的色彩表達、克萊因的結構表現主義、波洛克倡導的自發性構圖，以及德庫寧將具象轉化為抽象的手法。但里希特的抽象風格自成一派，只此一家，終究還是無可比擬。此作尤其與莫奈的《睡蓮》呈異曲同工之妙，用上寧靜的綠和藍為主調，並以幾抹粉紅作點綴，像極《睡蓮》裡的蓮花，及其在水上的動人倒影。除此以外，此作同樣盤旋於具象與抽象之間，讓人失去對空間的掌握，感覺如幻似真。

《抽象畫》充分體現了里希特運用刮刀創作的嫻熟技巧。在 80 年代後期，刮刀成為他創作抽象作品的重要工具。當他手持刮刀，在大幅畫布上縱橫劃過顏料，不同的壓力和速度最終會以隨機的方式呈現，形成獨特的構圖，散發出自然的美感，與直接在畫布上繪畫的效果截然不同。在《抽象畫》中，閃耀迷人的色彩相互交融，效果震撼人心之餘，畫布上的繪畫痕跡同時亦被抹去。作品這種具破壞性且不可預料的形成，恰好反映出自然的本質。學者貝亞特・桑根（Beate Söntgen）認為，里希特的創作方法「將工具劃過畫布的痕跡，結合顏色的層疊交錯，呈現出從表面看來是具象，或貌似風景的結構，卻從未形成過任何可識別之物。」（貝亞特・桑根，摘自《 〈Work on the Picture: The Discretion of Gerhard Richter〉，「格哈德・里希特：《抽象畫》」展覽目錄，科隆路德維希博物館，科隆，2008 年，頁 37）。
 
「對里希特而言，刮刀讓他得以將隨機此元素融入其藝術當中。多年來，他一直謹慎使用這方法。但後來卻發現，用刮刀塗抹顏料時，畫家永遠無法完全控制最終的構圖，而這種驚喜恰好能帶他走出死胡同，摒棄不夠好的舊方法，從而開拓全新的創作思路。」——格哈德・里希特，摘自迪特馬爾・埃爾格（Dietmar Elger），《 Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting 》，芝加哥，2009 年，頁 251。
 
里希特的抽象藝術，無論是手法還是概念，既前無古人，亦後無來者。儘管如此，他的創作成果卻讓人聯想起大自然的形態和色彩。作品的構圖複雜，且層次豐富，令人忍不住要進一步解讀箇中之意。正如藝術家所說：「當人們渴望從畫作中看出端倪，這正賦予了作品無窮的生命力。畫中多處都看似某物，但這種想像從來沒有成真。」（迪特馬爾・埃爾格，摘自《Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting》，芝加哥，2009 年， 頁 267）。刮抹這方法讓顏料微妙層疊，各種色彩交相輝映，透露出的紋理讓人憶起日出、日落、淺灘、激流和波峰等多種自然形態，而此作則無疑給出平靜的水面，帶有動植物群倒影的印象。
 
格哈德・里希特作出了無與倫比的藝術貢獻，被國際譽為當世的一代宗師。他獨特多樣的作品體現了逾五十年來對知覺和認知核心本質作出的哲學探索。《抽象畫》系列誕生於里希特創作技術發展之鼎盛時期，呈現出震撼人心的美學美感，而此作堪稱為其高超藝術造詣的極致範例。