Richter consciously employs the principle of coincidence in his work. "It‘s not that I have a clear picture in my mind's eye, instead I plan to end up with a picture that I haven‘t planned at all. Well, this method of operating with arbitrariness, chance, incidence and destruction may lead to a certain image type, however, it‘ll never lead to a predetermined picture." (Quote after Hubertus Butin and Stefan Gronert, Gerhard Richter. Editionen 1965-2004, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, pp. 35/36). The pastose structure shows an abstract treatment of the paint, so that the result always points to the process. Richter commits artistic control to the medium paint: as it is the case in our work, by means of offsetting a pastose paint structure onto the paper. This work process leads to amorphous formations that add a relief-like fragile character to the work and a haptic element to the composition. It allows Richter the freedom to be subject only, to be second to his means of creation, making material and color the determining forces, a concern decisive for his entire artistic creation. Despite an imagery rooted in abstraction, his works maintain a realistic reference. Pictures always represent something, we read them, which has always been in the nature of the reception of art. And this is also Gerhard Richter‘s intention, at times his abstract pictures have associative titles, or - as it is the case with our work – a calendar date as title that provides enough stimulation for the observer‘s interpretation. Our work was made December 9, 1996, one assumes on a bright and crisp winter‘s day. Freshly-fallen snow is swirled by a light breeze. The seemingly sacral work conveys a quiet and subdued mood of a world that appears to be all peaceful. While others believe that the forms of expression abstraction has to offer have already been exhausted, Gerhard Richter succeeds in creating a new form of painting by making pictures that offer an independent and innovative visual experience. [SM]