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The Week in Germany: Culture

July 20, 2007

Gerhard Richter’s New Stained Glass Window for the Cologne Cathedral Nears Completion

Gerhard Richter in front of his design for the Cologne Cathedral (dpa)

One of the most important living German artists, Gerhard Richter, has designed a new window for Cologne’s towering gothic cathedral. With a special mass on August 25, the Archdioceses of Cologne will celebrate the window’s installation.

Richter has one of the most diverse legacies among modern painters, ranging from political satire as a member of the so-called “capitalist realists” to blurred photorealism to pure abstraction. The 100 square meter window in the cathedral will filter light through a mosaic of around 11,500 glass squares of about 80 different colors.

Richter, who has never made religious art, said that he took up the offer to work on the window immediately when the cathedral’s chief builder Barbara Schock-Werner contacted him. “The opportunity to work on this space is unbelievable,” Richter said in the magazine Der Spiegel in 2006.

The original window from 1863 was destroyed in World War II and could not be rebuilt because the plans were lost to fire in the same attack. A mostly clear glass window was installed following the war, but it lacks the right aesthetic effect, according to the cathedral provost Norbert Feldhoff. “It’s colorless and too bright and it just isn’t what one expects in a gothic cathedral,” Feldhoff said, as quoted by Der Spiegel.

To cast the proper warm glow across the vaulted expanse of the world’s second tallest church, Richter worked with a contractor to apply colored film to pieces of clear glass according to his specifications. In December 2006, a small portion of the window was installed to ensure that the colors achieved the desired effect.

Links:

An Overview of Gerhard Richter's Life and Work from the Contemporary Art Institute

The Cologne Cathedral

More Art News: Washington DC's Kreeger Museum and Colorfield Remix

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