Reinhold Budde creates a world of colour and then obliterates it. Over a period of one year to eighteen
months, he superimposes up to fifty glazed layers of paint; the result is a permanently changing
pictorial situation, which emerges and apparently fades before quasi culminating in a mystical, deep
black.
The appearance and materiality of the paint alters during this complex layering. It attains an abstract
quality, leading the artist to completely abandon the three-dimensional illusion of depth in favour of
a painting that seems to be restricted to length and breadth, but ultimately concerns the so-called
fourth dimension – that of time.
In addition, Budde’s pictorial composition takes on the function of atmospheric densification. A wide
spectrum of emotional worlds and energies is revealed to him during painting, and his works are able to
convey them to the viewer. In this sense, Reinhold Budde’s artistic credo is similar to that of Hans
Hartung: “The deeper we penetrate into the innermost layers of our being, the greater and more universal
will be the expressive power of our art.” (1)
Budde’s art of extreme densification emerges in a state of calmness and concentration. And it demands the same qualities in viewing. The multilayered complexity of his works is combined with an intuitive perception, sought after by the artist. “If you know what you do not know, if you are mindful of the things that you do not know, if you pay attention to whatever seems unfamiliar; then – and only then – discoveries are possible.” (2) Like Pierre Soulages, Budde thus opposes a superficial view of artworks and emphasises: “...sensitive viewing must be learnt afresh”, so that “the beauty of the everyday is accessible to the eye.” (3) But precise consideration demands the leisure and patience to see beneath the two-dimensional black surface, tracing what is concealed there. In return, Budde offers opportunities for immersion – intimations – coloured discoveries to those who are prepared to contemplate his art seriously. His paintings’ emerging process comprises fluent states between the coloured surfaces’ becoming and passing, and periods of quiet defined by the drying process of the layers of paint, which takes longer and longer. Especially in a world that favours a rapid changeover of pictures and pictorial information, this decelerating approach sets its own emphasis, which give it an affinity to far-eastern philosophy.
Reinhold Budde leaves behind only slight traces of his artistic activity. By means of a regular
brushstroke, his pictures are given smooth, meditative surfaces. This flow – which is precisely and
technically engrained in his works – has an underlying, apparently uninterrupted rhythm, which the
artist compares to the constancy of breathing. Budde works as a master of concentration, almost
rejecting an individual painterly gesture, in order to arrive at a homogeneous application of colour
and clearly-structured pictorial surfaces. The outcome of this rational mode of painting is a tremendous
pictorial calm and stability. Despite the strict retraction of any pain?terly gesture, signs of the brush
remain visible; the painting process itself, as well as the creator’s momentary agitations, is still
expressed in the slight variability of Budde’s individual signature.
The viewer’s eye, with seismographic sensitivity, is able to follow the impulses of motion of the
artist’s hand, thereby discovering the gently rhythmic quality of his monochrome works. The works
thus develop inner dynamics of structure, colouring or light. Like Günter Umberg, Budde employs his
personal reserve and minimalising gesture to give the colour black – as the focus of his pictorial
art – additional opportunities to unfold. (4) In this way, a new perceptual dimension comes to the fore,
as a wide spectrum of colours vibrates in anticipation of discovery among the regularly applied surfaces.
Superficially, only the edges of the painting reveal something of the ecstasy and diversity of those
coloured grounds that lie concealed beneath the all-dominant black, only flashing up mysteriously on
occasion. Culminating in this colour of closeness, intensity and concentration, Reinhold Budde discovers
the way that new experiences of seeing evolve in black’s relation to other colours. Looking at a black
picture may be compared to our vision at night: the eye must familiarise itself with the darkness until
we can discern nuances in structure and colour. This increased concentration facilitates an intensified
view of the visible and the invisible, perhaps even of the transcendental and our own selves.
Budde selects formats which correspond to the rhythm and radius of his arm movements and, above all,
whose dimensional development represents a technical challenge. But precisely this monumental painting,
which radiates far into the room while attracting the passer-by, offers the viewer not only possibilities
of physical and psychic approach, but also a contrasting interaction with Budde’s smaller works on canvas
and paper. None of his works have frames, and they become – quite seamlessly – an organic part of their
surroundings. The light works on paper may begin to quiver when the viewer walks past, and the artist
thus potentiates the meditative atmosphere immanent in his works.
The velvety surfaces of Reinhold Budde’s paintings arouse a desire to touch them. Their appearance alters according to the fall of light and direction of viewing, meaning that they develop a vital irresolution. The intensity of the surrounding light determines the works’ differentiated moods. Particularly at dusk, they evolve a powerful light of their own. Movement in front of the paintings also creates momentary variations in the interplay of light and dark, making them appear very present and alive. At the moment when one approaches Budde’s canvases, therefore, one experiences the accessibility of his art in an intense way. Although it has no direct message, it calls upon us to linger – to read the images by comparative viewing and the creation of simultaneous references. Thus, in accordance with its own perceptual rhythms, it mobilises our personal activity, without which it would remain incomprehensible.?Opinions concerning its significance as a colour or non-colour are as various as the tones of black itself. (5) Although Aristotle referred to black and white as basic colours from which all others evolved, art theory after Leon Battista Alberti no longer considered them part of the colour spectrum. For Goethe, black still did not represent a colour in the prismatic sense, but only a pigment, which could be transferred to other bodies. However, Matisse emphasised the opposite: “Le noir est une couleur!” and also underlined “est une force”. (6) Budde also understands black as a powerful, original colour, which – although it is associated with melancholy, mourning and death – develops unexpected energies in dialogue with colour and light. Reinhold Budde is thus one of many great painters of black, joining a specific line of tradition that extends beyond the history of modern art, and includes e. g. Manet’s use of colour or Goya’s dark visions. (7)
In particular, Reinhold Budde found starting points in the work of the New York School, whose “Black
Paintings” in the course of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s and 1960s asserted black and white
as independent colour values. (8) Budde’s affinity for black, his extremely reduced texture and brushstroke,
the negation of volumes and space, and his large pictorial formats ally him with the New York School.
Like Ad Reinhardt, he strives for a “Manifestation of that which, after taking away all the aspects or
elements accidental and alien to art, comprises the Essence of Art.” (9) Like Frank Stella, he makes seeing
into the subject of his pictures, and like Robert Rauschenberg, he emphasises the dimension of time.
By rejecting narrative diversions and darkening powerful colours to reduce their distractions, he also
approaches the pictorial effects intended by Mark Rothko: “They can make [the viewer] come up against
his own emptiness, put him at the mercy of his own self” and “lead to a catharsis”. (10) This existential
search for the self also reflects Rauschenberg’s, Stella’s and finally Barnett Newman’s intention to
prompt the viewer’s intense debate with his own presence using a minimum of means. In this context,
black can be interpreted as a means of crossing boundaries – from the visible to the invisible, from
the material to the spiritual, from the conscious to the unconscious. (11)
Nonetheless, Reinhold Budde is less concerned with symbolic values than with the consequences of his
artistic work. Early works by the painter already reveal a clear tendency to reduce any padding and a
colour spectrum that is becoming increasingly dark. Although his early work was dominated by coloration
rich in contrasts, from the beginning the colour black has represented a constant in his œuvre. In his
uncompromising struggle for the most succinct of formulations, the advance towards black monochrome work
helped Budde arrive – in the mid 1990s – at a pictorial idea that was reduced as far as possible. This
represented a clear underlining of how little his art depended on spontaneous idea, but far more on the
artist’s seriousness and ceaseless searching.
Budde’s colours – which have to be seen differently or perceived afresh – lie concealed beneath
homogeneous black surfaces that offer no fixed point to the eye as it skims the canvas. They sharpen
our view, inasmuch as our eyes gradually become used to the darkness; only after longer viewing is a
spectrum of colours revealed. In this way, by means of a consciously impeded reception, Budde creates
monochrome works that are paradoxically multicoloured.
Reinhold Budde’s quiet black surfaces attain a special degree of clarity and auratic presence. Like
visual force fields, each of these solemn canvases – by means of an asceticism of gesture and colour –
forms its own magical-magnetic continuum of colour and space, with an archaic simplicity and intensity.
This painting, characterised by an inner stringency, documents the artist’s pretension to seriousness
with its characteristic monumentality and dignity. Its intensity and sensuality enables it to open up
oscillating possibilities of perception and contemplation to the viewer, on the borderline between
visibility and invisibility. Stirred by its subtle beauty and perfection, he is able to reach a state
of spiritual focus.
The consistency of Reinhold Budde’s approach is equally obvious on the basis of the graphic works that
have always accompanied his painting. In his graphic art, he also re-questions the ideas of Abstract
Expressionism and continues to develop them by means of constant experimentation – to the perfection
and intensification of his art. Following the tracks of Barnett Newmann or Richard Serra on the basis
of advancing expressive abstraction, it is again Budde’s rejection of loudly expressive pictorial effect
which – in his lithography and drawing in particular – underlines the integrity with which he pursues
his artistic aims.
Reinhold Budde’s oil pastel drawings are embedded in the production of the black paintings; in these,
too, he covers coloured backgrounds with black oil pastel. Both the colours concealed beneath monochrome
picture surfaces and the rhythmic application of black thus return in the graphic work, for again – by
contrast to first impressions – not a single one of the matt, shimmering black surfaces is identical to
any other. Founded on the breathing principle of continually recurrent motion, Budde’s precise flowing
strokes give them a soft structure and most certainly an individual character. It is a meditative act,
says the artist; this intensive, uninterrupted drawing with the oil crayon. He also uses lithographic
crayon with concentrated, regular strokes when applying it to the stone before transfer, or drawing
directly onto paper. These different materials lend his works on paper variable structures and grains,
the density of which leads, in a very specific way, to visual breaks in the white and grey tones.
In an enthralling yet essentially similar way, Budde’s airy, light lithographic crayon works contrast
with the artist’s paintings and oil pastel works that culminate in black. Like the White Paintings by
Robert Rauschenberg, they cannot be viewed as separate from one another, but only in interaction. By
comparison to their dark counterparts, they allow the eye a direct reference to light. Their
textureless surfaces make these works ?appear sublime in their quietness and purity. Vitalised on
the threshold of visibility by an extreme reserve in drawing, they experience a gentle harmony of
the previous contrasts, for “Everything evolves from black to lose itself in white.” (12) Thus Budde’s
creative world is revealed to us; a world requiring no explanation, for it functions without cryptic
symbolism.
1) Rolf Hagen: Hans Hartungs Graphik, in: Rolf Schmücking: Hans Hartung. Das
graphische Werk,
Braunschweig 1965, S. 195.
2) Charles Juliet: Gespräche mit Pierre Soulages, in: Felix Zdenek (Hg.): Pierre Soulages. Malerei
als Farbe und Licht. Katalog zur Ausstellung in den Hamburger Deichtorhallen
16.5. – 18.8.1997, Hamburg 1997, S. 13.
3) Corona Unger im Gespräch mit Reinhold Budde am 26.2.2007.
4) Ulrike Schuck (Hg.): Günter Umberg. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Museum Moderner Kunst Landkreis
Cuxhaven 30.8. – 27.9.1992, Otterndorf 1992, S. 6.
5) Vgl. Thomas Zaunschirm (Hg.): Die Farben Schwarz. Wien, New York 1999, S. 147 – 162.
6) Siehe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Farbenlehre. Theoretische Schriften, Tübingen 1953, S. 174ff.
und Henri Matisse: Über Kunst, Zürich 1982, S. 191f.
7) Siehe Stephanie Rosenthal (Hg.): Black Paintings. Katalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Haus
der Kunst München 15.9.2006 – 14.1.2007, München 2006, S. 13f.
8) vgl. Rosenthal, S. 14, die darauf hinweist, dass zuvor bereits Max Beckmann Schwarz als „Farbe
der Abstraktion“ bezeichnete. Weiterhin dazu Ortrud Westheider: Die Farbe Schwarz in der Malerei Max
Beckmanns, Berlin 1995.
9) Thomas Kellein: ‚Schreibender Engel’ oder perfider Satan? Zu den Schriften und Gesprächen Ad
Reinhardts, in: Thomas Kellein: Ad Reinhardt. Schriften und Gespräche, München 1984, S. 135.
10) Rosenthal, S. 63.
11) Ebd. S. 77 – 79.
12) Louis-Bertrand Castel (1688 – 1757): L’Optique des couleurs. Paris 1740, zit. n. Claude Lévi-Strauss:
Sehen Hören Lesen, München 1995, S. 122.