Umlauff's ciphers in colour provoke more thoughts than can be expressed in words

An attempt nonetheless by Ralf Kulschewskij (Translation: Dr. Godfrey Carr)

"The ways of humanity are very varied" noted the Romantic philosopher and poet Novalis adding '"anyone who studies them and compares them, will see strange patterns emerging, patterns which seem to belong to that great range of ciphers which one can discern everywhere in clouds, in snow, in freezing water, in the outer forms and inner regions of mountains, in plants, in the lights of sky and the strange coincidences of fate." 'In all of these" he confidently concluded, "we sense a key to this strange script, the grammar of all of this." The development of the painter Jürgen Umlauff born in 1960 represents a painstakingly gradual, scrupulously responsible and passionately inquisitive approach to these mysterious hieroglyphs.

After very wide ranging experimental beginnings with various materials applied as pastos, (resins, egg tempera, etc) there followed collages made from different papers, which, applied in many layers, took on a relief-like surface with in each case dominant colours (especially ochre and red) and, with subsidiary colours reflecting inspirations from nature in Spain in 1989, they opened up a richly varied spectrum of colours. A considerable group of watercolours from the years 1992 to 1994, in which cinnamon, blue, and black sheets of colour are juxtaposed and contrasted to one another confirms the experience that (pace Kandinsky and Raimer Jochims) colour is genuinely amorphous. It is only the act of painting which gives it form, often as a spiral movement (see Altdorfer's Alexander's Battle and much of Van Gogh). This means that it is only in the actual practice of painting that colour attains an intellectual dimension. Sheets of paper prepared to test this with special patterns, (grids, lattices) produce the 'negative ' conclusion, that colours need no (geometric) forms. This is the reason for Umlauff's rejection of any preconceived images imposed on the act of painting. Almost inevitably, after these preliminary stages and in line with the essentially progressive impetus of the artist, there followed in 1996 explorations in the triangle of colours Red/Green/Blue. Clearly it was not without some reference to those primary colour tryptichs which are so exemplary in art history ( Alexander Rodtschenko, 1921; Yves Klein , 1960, Barnett Newman's four versions of "Whose afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue", 1966-70) that Umlauff discovered both the optically and psychically obvious effect of the colour red: the fact that it is in both senses of the word "attractive". Even though his pigments are many times diluted in water and spread over large canvasses it is clear that the colour red (not only the violent but also the "thin" delicate, tender. red) strikes the eye first and as it were "conveys" the other colours. Because for him (in contrast to Rodtschenko) it is never a question of taking painting to its logical end, but first of all establishing its foundations, it is much more important for him to eliminate the, in his view, "evolutionarily more recent" and more sympathetic red, in order to "discover" the more elementary yellow and blue, and if possible to entice them from their distance.

This is easier said than done, and there have already been similar attempts to achieve it in the history of European art. Even within a period of one colour composition style of Dutch painting of the 17th century it was possible to see a sudden switch from Red/Yellow/Blue with a relatively warm atmosphere to a combination of Blue/Yellow " with a decidedly cold feeling to the colours" (Lorenz Dittmann). A similar tendency can be seen in William Turner with theoretical links of course to the "Polarities" in Goethe's Theory of Colours: that is:

Plus Minus; Yellow Blue; Light Shadow; Brightness Darkness; Warm Cold; Near Far etc.

 "In actual fact Goethe only accepted two basic colours, the active Yellow and the passive Blue, which were then mixed to become Green and heightened to become Red" (Helmut Draxler). It is well known that Goethe's unsustainable Theory of Colours was " the attempt to unite a theory of salvation with empirical reality and thus to demonstrate that a preconceived truth actually existed." (Albrecht Schöne). Jürgen Umlauff is concerned with nothing less than such a "Theory of Colours". For this reason thecolour phenomena in his more recent works, that is, from 1996 onwards, the "Iterations", have an even morestriking effect on the observer.

The attempt not only to marginalize but even to completely eliminate red proves extremely difficult. The red appears or rather shines through constantly, but not in a substantial painted way, but as a visual perception. As a "background" behind a source of light, as a surrounding "Aura" or an encircling "Halo". This confusing effect could possibly have been avoided by a harsher clash of the two 'accepted' colours, for what the painter is really after is something beyond this. Both his heuristic impetus and his artistic procedures are so well adapted to one another and so consistently underpin each other, that, faced with this congruence, one might well gain the impression, that it could not have been done differently. Applied with very diluted acrilics on untreated cotton or with watercolours on absorbent cotton paper, thousands of varied forms are at first glance visible in the colours which are finally left after the preceding reduction process. Mostly a yellow, a greeny yellow forms the painted ground, whilst a blue, an ultramarine and indeed always the same colour, stands as an inscribed sign in the unpainted sections. The oscillating correspondence between the two reminds one of the precarious balance between two elements under unclear geological conditions ( for instance, the pools of water and islands of grass in Lake Chad, as it gradually turns into marsh). Looking at these forms we are justified in thinking of shapes like those sacred and mysterious hieroglyphs, or of all the strange micro-organisms which we see through the magnifying glass, or of water and sand or sea and sun or sky and flowers. But in the last analysis these ciphers have no clearly defined meaning. Set next to one another, striving towards each other and at times flowing into one another they are merely bearers of colours. Their behaviour, the pulsating movement of two apparently opposed colours is in my view the essential element of these paintings. As far as the motifs are concerned it would certainly not be wrong to think of natural phenomena, of dampness and dryness, of inorganic elements and organic life. But the antinomy of the colours is what draws the eye into these pictures. The distant blue, which cools and calms the nerves and the intimate yellow which stimulates and smells sweetly and confuses the senses.. These polarising images of the painter Jürgen Umlauf are called 'Iterations' in that through their repeated juxtapositions they come near to the contradictory nature of human modes of feeling. Their colouristic reduction channels the abundance of colour to aid mental concentration. There is an extraordinary paradox in their aesthetic effect. The closer one looks at them the more they seem to withdraw and look back from a distance. It is possible to sense the message of these "strange conjunctions" of artistically guided "chance". "But", as Novalis regretfully concluded "the sense of the message they contain eludes any determined form and refuses to turn into a higher key to reality". Referring to Kant, Nicklas Luhman sees the function of art as '"giving more for consideration by the mind than can be expressed in language and thus in concepts". It is this which distinguishes Umlauff‘s works from the endless products of the hectic world of artistic fashion. Luhmann continues as follows: " What distinguishes perception, is above all an independent relationship beween redundancy and variety. This makes possible, in a way which is not accessible to thinking and to communication, the simultaneous presence of surprise and recognition. By using and indeed heightening possibilities of perception and at them same time exploiting them art can present the unity of this investigation." Jürgen Umlauff's "Iterations" exemplify this in the fullest and most beautiful sense.