Vierwaldstätter See 1969

Gerhard Richter has made this silvery grey painting of Vierwaldstätter See, and you can almost feel the cool air coming off the lake. It’s a mysterious scene, and he’s built it up with layers and layers of paint, soft and muted. I bet he was thinking about the way light reflects off the water, and how it changes the shapes of the mountains. Maybe he even took a boat out there himself, just to soak it all in. There’s this blurry kind of quality to it, like a memory that's fading. I can see him, brush in hand, trying to capture something that’s always just out of reach. And that’s what makes it so interesting.