Richard Peter Schmid is an artist who repeatedly seeks dialogue with his older works in order to be able to have a fresh look at them from the perspective of his latest paintings and discover in them the seeds of what is to come.
His work is not a slave to innovation, but it is aware of what it owes to older painting, his own as well as works by other artists. ‘To reach a sensibility, which is comparable to that of Monet’s, Renoir’s, or Cézanne’s picture sequences’, is no small-scale intention. It is about nothing less than the possibilities painting affords today.
The concern is for painting which is entirely conscious of the fact that it is denied all possibilities for merely repeating historical painting and which nevertheless does not see its salvation in mere technical or even technological expansions of the painterly process. But, to avoid any misunderstanding: Painting may only be anyway preserved if you carry on with it, against all inner and exterior obstacles. http://www.ftn-books.com has the Linzer publication form 2002 available.
