D Day, Reconstruction (Bombed Cathedral) 1944

Richard Eurich made this painting, D Day, Reconstruction (Bombed Cathedral), we don’t know exactly when, probably in response to the second world war. The grays and browns, they’re not just colors, they’re feelings, they’re the mood of the painting itself. You can feel that this was a process of layering and layering, a bit like rebuilding something that has been destroyed. Look at the way the paint is applied, thick in some places, almost like the texture of ruins, and then thin and transparent in others, creating this hazy, dreamlike quality. See that small building in the foreground? The artist has created the door and window with just a few strokes of paint; it’s so fragile it looks like it could disappear any minute. It feels so temporary. Eurich’s work reminds me a little of Anselm Kiefer, that idea of history and memory embedded in the materiality of the paint itself. Art is a way to keep the conversation going, to keep asking questions, even when there are no easy answers.