Richard Müller. Ölbilder, Zeichnungen, Radierungen. Hamburg, Galerie Brockstedt, 1974, cat. no. 1, ill./ Richard Müller. Ölbilder, Zeichnungen, Radierungen. Berlin, Galerie Pels-Leusden, 1975, cat. no. 1, ill. / Zeitspiegel I. 1891-1945. Berlin, Galerie Pels-Leusden, 1986, cat. no. 121 („Ruine Bösig (in Böhmen)")
Literature and illustration
Auction 212: Moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst. Munich, Karl & Faber, 25.5.2007, cat. no. 1006 („Ruine Bösig (Böhmen)" / Auction 219: Moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst. Ausgewählte Werke. Munich, Karl & Faber, 29.5.2008, cat. no. 1048, ill.
The castle portrayed here dates back to the 13th century and, like Müller's birthplace, is located in the northern part of Bohemia. There it is called Hrad Bezděz. It looks exactly the same today as it did a hundred years ago. The walls have been weathered by wind and weather. Some are unplastered, so you can clearly see how they are made up of blue-grey quarry stones and the occasional red brick. These walls have evidently particularly inspired the painter, as his painting is so focussed on their molecular textures and their greenish modulated surfaces that one loses all orientation in physical space. Müller utilises the existing - in themselves already ‘abstract’ - structures of the masonry in order to modify and multiply them. This results in elements whose relationship to the depicted becomes ever more tenuous. If the painter had consistently pursued such transformations, he would soon have arrived at complete abstraction, as Piet Mondrian did with his visual dissection of a Dutch church façade. But this was never Müller's intention, and so the painting remains an exception among his realistic - often even hyper-realistic - pictures. It is truly an exceptional picture, one of the extremely rare paintings in which abstraction asserts itself in an unmistakable way even before abstraction. Karlheinz Lüdeking
Oil on canvas. 98,5 × 82,5 cm
(38 ¾ × 32 ½ in.). Monogrammed below the middle right and dated: RM 1906. On the stretcher two exhibition labels of Galerie Pels-Leusden, Berlin. There too with the estate stamp Lugt 5824. Catalogue raisonné: Wodarz M1906.04. [3144] Framed
Provenance
Estate of the artist / Private Collection, Brandenburg
Richard Müller. Ölbilder, Zeichnungen, Radierungen. Hamburg, Galerie Brockstedt, 1974, cat. no. 1, ill./ Richard Müller. Ölbilder, Zeichnungen, Radierungen. Berlin, Galerie Pels-Leusden, 1975, cat. no. 1, ill. / Zeitspiegel I. 1891-1945. Berlin, Galerie Pels-Leusden, 1986, cat. no. 121 („Ruine Bösig (in Böhmen)")
Literature and illustration
Auction 212: Moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst. Munich, Karl & Faber, 25.5.2007, cat. no. 1006 („Ruine Bösig (Böhmen)" / Auction 219: Moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst. Ausgewählte Werke. Munich, Karl & Faber, 29.5.2008, cat. no. 1048, ill.
The castle portrayed here dates back to the 13th century and, like Müller's birthplace, is located in the northern part of Bohemia. There it is called Hrad Bezděz. It looks exactly the same today as it did a hundred years ago. The walls have been weathered by wind and weather. Some are unplastered, so you can clearly see how they are made up of blue-grey quarry stones and the occasional red brick. These walls have evidently particularly inspired the painter, as his painting is so focussed on their molecular textures and their greenish modulated surfaces that one loses all orientation in physical space. Müller utilises the existing - in themselves already ‘abstract’ - structures of the masonry in order to modify and multiply them. This results in elements whose relationship to the depicted becomes ever more tenuous. If the painter had consistently pursued such transformations, he would soon have arrived at complete abstraction, as Piet Mondrian did with his visual dissection of a Dutch church façade. But this was never Müller's intention, and so the painting remains an exception among his realistic - often even hyper-realistic - pictures. It is truly an exceptional picture, one of the extremely rare paintings in which abstraction asserts itself in an unmistakable way even before abstraction. Karlheinz Lüdeking
