New York Times art critic Jason Farago examines Gerhard Richter's approach to landscape painting, arguing that the German artist, long regarded as a skeptic of painting's relevance, has developed a distinctive method that embraces blur and historical ambiguity. The article traces Richter's career from his early photorealist works through his abstract cycles, focusing on how his blurred landscapes—such as the "Seascape" series—engage with the legacy of Romanticism while acknowledging the impossibility of unmediated vision after photography and historical trauma.
This matters because Richter's work challenges the binary between figuration and abstraction that has dominated postwar art criticism. By treating history itself as a blur—neither fully accessible nor entirely lost—Richter offers a model for painting that can address contemporary anxieties about memory, representation, and truth. Farago's analysis positions Richter as a pivotal figure whose skepticism toward painting's conventions has paradoxically revitalized the medium for a new generation.