Measuring almost 3 x 3 metres, Cathedral Square, Milan is one of Gerhard Richter's largest figurative paintings. The work features the northern side of the cathedral square, onto which the shopping centre Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II faces. The façade of the 19th century Galleria covers a large area of the painting’s left side. This is a contrast to the right of the picture, where one can see two left side aisles of the gothic cathedral and the adjacent square.

As with the majority of Richter's paintings from the 1960s, Cathedral Square, Milan is executed in grey scale, however in this case Richter forgoes extreme contrasts of deep blacks and bright whites. The slightly blurred appearance of the painting, which Richter achieved by smudging over the paint later on, is one of Richter's characteristics. This painting features a specific kind of blurring: the artist treated the picture in a wave-like manner.

It is of note that Richter forgoes to feature the cathedral as Milan's most famous landmark. Instead he directs his attention to the immediate surroundings of the cathedral. The fact that Richter addressed the Milan cathedral in a painting as early as 1964 might offer an explanation: Milan, Cathedral [CR: 49] is based on a photograph taken from a newspaper or magazine.

This painting was a commissioned work for the company Siemens Elettra and it remained at the company's headquarters in Milan for 30 years. According to Richter, this commission was the beginning of an ongoing preoccupation with townscapes: "Yes, sometimes I've enjoyed doing commissioned work in order to discover something that I wouldn't have found of my own accord. And so, when Siemens commissioned my first townscape, that led to all the townscapes that followed." (Interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 1993 in: Gerhard Richter: Text. Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961–2007, Thames & Hudson, London, 2009, p. 301)

Whilst Richter worked on Cathedral Square, Milan, he created a second painting of Milan of the same measurements, which is Richter's first townscape based on an aerial photograph. Since the painting eventually did not meet the artist's expectations, Richter cut it into nine pieces which are listed as autonomous works in his catalogue raisonné: Townscape M1 to Townscape M9 [CR: 170/1-9]; one part of which has been painted over using grey paint. Following the two Milan paintings, between 1968 and 1970 Richter created 38 further townscapes. [All townscapes]

Notes prepared by editorial team