Günter Umberg
Untitled
1977
Pigment and dammar on wood. 220 x 80 x 4 cm. - Minor traces of age.
'In his remarks on colour, Ludwig Wittgenstein poses the question: “What is the essence of a visual image that we would call the image of a coloured transparent medium?” This question is essential to the on-going study of painting. It is about defining the character of an image as painted colour. Aristotle defines colour as “the border of the transparent on a clearly outlined body”. This is an excellent definition for the painter. It attaches colour to its materiality (albeit Aristotle transferring it to the outer edge of an object), which also means it is restricted to its material character in its appearance. On order to be able to develop an understanding of painted colour as a colour image, we need to comprehend colour and the logic of its form. A painting should be represented in a surrounding that allows the viewer to establish a relationship to it as a colour image. The essence of a painting has its place, that is to say it is only realised in the context of this relationship. One can speak of a viewing experience where a colour feeling unfolds in the context of its perception.' (n.a., Joseph Marioni, Günter Umberg, in: Outside the cartouche, Zur Frage des Betrachters in der radikalen Malerei, exhib.cat i.a. Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Inc. Munich 1986, p.16).
Provenance
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna (adhesive label verso); private collection, South Germany