23.3.88 1988

Richter made this watercolour in 1988, pushing pigment across paper until something emerged from the puddles of blue and yellow. I can imagine Richter in his studio, moving the colors around with a big brush, maybe even tilting the paper to let the paint run. There's a push-and-pull happening, a back-and-forth between control and chance. It looks like the kind of painting where the artist is trying to find something, rather than illustrate something already known. I’m struck by the way the blues and yellows bleed into each other, creating these soft, blurry edges. It reminds me of some of Turner’s late watercolors, those hazy, atmospheric landscapes where everything seems to dissolve into light and color. There’s a looseness and fluidity here, a willingness to let the materials do their thing. And somehow, in that process, a world comes into being. It shows how painters learn from each other over time, taking up the same challenges of how to transform feeling into form.