“Simply because I liked it so much I saw it in Venice and thought: I'd like to have that for myself. To start with I only meant to make a copy, so that I could have a beautiful painting at home and with it a piece of that period, all that potential beauty and sublimity... Then my copy went wrong, and the pictures that finally emerged went to show that it just can't be done any more, not even by way of a copy. All I could do was to break the whole thing down and show that it's no longer possible”

Richter's quote refers to his 'Annunciation after Titian', he made in 1973
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 104, note 52

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Gerhard Richter 96
German visual artist, born 1932 1932

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