Gerhard Richter @ Tholey, a photo from Saarland, West

Photographer's Note

Today I will start a little series about Tholey Abbey.

Famous German artist Gerhard Richter (*1932) recently donated three choir windows to the abbey. Apart from his works at Cologne Cathedral, these are his only church windows, and they are supposed to be Richter's last big artwork with respect to his age.

The technique applied is somewhat astounding. His work "Image 724-4" was digitally divided into 16 vertical stripes, the tenth of which was selected, mirrored several times and concatted. By doing so, he created strange patterns of high symmetry, and it's up to the spectator if he sees angels or demons in them. Enough light is available, anyway.

The inauguration celebrations had just started a few days before we incidentally arrived there. For more info see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter-Fenster_(Tholey) (only in German).

Tholey Abbey was first mentioned as early as in 634 A.D. and therefore is the oldest monastery on German soil.

pajaran, jean113, jemaflor has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Silvio1953 (205581) 2020-10-08 3:46

Ciao Sven, my today neighbour, fascinating interior with fantastic stained glasses, excellent exposure, wonderful colors and splendid light, very well done, my friend, ciao Silvio

BennyV (32570) 2020-10-08 10:28

Hello Sven Erich

Richter is a name you can't miss when you do art museums in Germany (like we did this summer), still I didn't know he also did church windows. Quite surprising to me!

Thanks for the shot, this sure looks fascinating!

Benny

jean113 (21983) 2020-10-08 10:44

Hello Sven, the windows are very interesting and your notes are invaluable in helping us to understand the artwork.
The design must be quite unique.
Thanks for sharing, kind regards, Jean.

Tue (82146) 2020-10-08 13:52

Hello Sven Erich,
The stained-glass windows look fantastic and are well captured. They have got many small and elaborate details and fine colours. Very well done.
Lars

jemaflor (135326) 2020-10-08 23:27

Hi Sven,
Interesting and beautiful photo, well managed the capture of these colors and light, good symmetry, tfs.