What the Abstract Paintings of Gerhard Richter Taught Me About Grief

Grief isn’t static; it’s not predictable, neat or linear. Here’s how Gerhard Richter helped me feel more comfortable about not understanding.

Photo Credit: Jorge Franganillo on Wikimedia Commons

After my Dad died, I was struck by a craving for art. There was an urgency to lose myself in colour and texture. Though I’m a writer, I suddenly wanted images; words seemed so insufficient, such a meagre response to what I was feeling. And I sensed that looking at paintings would help me feel closer to my Dad. He was an art lover and had liked to paint. When my sister and I were younger, he’d sometimes take us to art galleries, encouraging us to really see and appreciate the work of a range of artists. Sadly, my poor health at the time, coupled with my rural location meant I couldn’t easily visit an art gallery, and so I had to access art from home instead. Then, rather serendipitously, I discovered a documentary film on Mubi about the German artist, Gerhard Richter: Gerhard Richter Painting (2011).

“What interests me in general, and this also applies to painting, are things I don’t understand. It’s like that with every picture: I don’t like the ones I understand.”

– Gerhard Richter

Born in Dresden in 1932, Richter is considered to be one of the world’s greatest living painters. He has a quiet groundedness that I was immediately drawn to. I watched, mesmerised, as Richter layered large canvases with thick veils of paint using a ‘squeegee’; in bold primary colours, along with black and white. After steadily applying these layers, he would then scrape them back to reveal unexpected textural landscapes. Fresh layers would then destroy them, replacing them yet again with new shapes and colour combinations. Parts of the canvas erupted with fragmented colour, while others were smoothed over and smeared. This was repeated over and over in an embodied process part choreography, part chance.

Photo Credit: University of St. Gallen on Wikimedia Commons

As I watched, I found myself thinking, “Oh no, don’t cover over that part! Don’t change that now!” Yet I was forced to accept the painting as a process of continually letting go, continually remaining open to what might come next. I watched this documentary twice within a few days; Richter’s slow negotiation between control and surrender was like medicine for me (no doubt because I tend to over-intellectualise). Richter’s comment about not liking the paintings he understands helped to shift my mindset away from intellectualising, opening me to the idea that I wasn’t going to be able to neatly understand grief. My relationship with my Dad had been a difficult one — he was an alcoholic for the entirety of my life. Grieving his passing also involved grieving our relationship — all the things it could have been, but wasn’t. There had been bright, colourful moments, yes, but there were also many murky layers.

Now, less than two months later, I am grieving the loss of my beloved cat, Joey — a dear animal friend who I spent almost every day with over the past thirteen years. Joey’s death hurts in a whole new way. Having had to make the decision to end his life means I’m also battling enormous guilt — did we act too soon? Or not soon enough? Suddenly the colours of Joey’s presence, which threaded through my every day, are scraped away. My mind returns to Richter’s paintings; their creation mirroring something of the emotional terrain of grief. The transformations that occur through the technique of applying, removing, and reapplying paint, over and over, so echoes the constantly-evolving nature of mourning. There are moments of beautiful recollection which are then buried beneath waves of obscurity; unexpected vibrancy emerging through destruction. So many feelings, so much confusion. I can’t grasp it and understand it neatly.

Grief is not a static thing. It doesn’t evolve linearly through predictable stages. Rather, it ebbs and flows in oceanic movements; hitting us in waves, accumulating and retreating in cycles of high and low tides. I didn’t fully understand this before. Grief, then, like Richter’s paintings, resists narrative. What we see is never the whole story; what is revealed is always partial.

“Embrace your grief. For there, your soul will grow.”

— C.G. Jung

Though we can’t help telling ourselves stories about grief — narratives that help us to some extent — there are moments when these simply don’t hold up to the reality. While we’re free to philosophise about it (just as I am doing typing these words), when the waves of pain reach their peak, all our philosophising on grief and death seem rather empty. Words fall away, yet images remain.

Richter’s paintings contain countless traces of earlier layers, partially visible, just as memories and emotions bloom and fade through the process of mourning. I recall when I collected my Dad’s ashes from the crematorium. I sat for a while afterward, on a bench in the memorial garden. It was a sunny day. A slight breeze danced a collection of windchimes tied to the branches of a nearby tree, creating a dreamlike music. After some time, I realised I was holding the urn in my arms in a way that echoed how my Dad once held me as a baby.

We will find ourselves surprised by distinct flashes and movements of grief. In that way, grief will always be hard to fully understand or grasp. No doubt that’s why grief is so transformative (if we allow it to be). If we find the courage to embrace it, as Jung observed, we may find the opportunity to grow in the uncertainty. Perhaps that is why Richter doesn’t like the paintings he understands — there is less space to grow there. This is where Richter’s genius lies: in making ambiguity deeply compelling. Through his paintings I’ve discovered a greater willingness to dwell in uncertainty. It makes me more fully human, more fully here in the way things are.