Hans Richter

     Hans Richter is the great-great-grandson of the Egyptian scribes.
His hieroglyphic scrolls are among the most venerable documents of
human calligraphy.  Although he is ranked with the dynamic and con-
structivist artists who understand reality in movement and development,
I am convinced that neither the south wind nor poppy-colored tears are
alien to his dreams.
     Richter first became known for his hieroglyphic scrolls, his scrolls
of drawings, his drawings on long ribbons of paper.  His drawings contained
the arrested motion of a poetry of plastic forms.  He developed the move-
ments of groups of isolated shapes, planes, lines.  Richter eschews all
useless ostentation.  His painting-poem is both Apollonian and Dionysian,
"intoxicated and sober not at different moments, but at the same time."
Although delicate sparks come flying from the nudity of the cubes, only
a pink sorceress will not admit that they are part of a great and profound
game.  Devoid of arrogance, these cubes pile up and lean against sonorous
arcs; they dream of a dynamic superpearl with a peaceful atomic heart that
sails from milky way to milky way.  Lines reveal dazzling feats of skill.
Mother lines drag young lines along behind them.  Dots are as strong as
seeds.  How miserable the golden bowels, the crowns, and the whirling
treasures seem before these works.
     I have known Richter since we were young.  I know his work and
Viking Eggeling's work.  Historical mistakes are hard to correct.  Their
merit is equal in the dynamic realization of plastic art.  Their scrolls
give birth to the abstract film.  It is certain that Richter succeeded
in turning these rolls of paintings into grandiose poems.
     Today he paints dynamic-static paintings, symbols of spiritual
fruit ripening in the human space of his heart.

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