lt is idle to ask whether Bergmann’s paintings are objective or non‑objective. Both the subject and the medium of his narrative paintings are colour and the effect of a diversity of colours coming together.

“Colours are actions and sufferings of light”. said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

In his pictures, Bergmann tries to shape these actions and sufferings of light into an overall epic atmosphere, into a course of events colourfully congealed on canvas, into a story or a fairy-tale. Until recently, the flow of colour was the mode dominating Bergmann’s paintings. But lately. strange hard contours and shadowy outlines have been added which structure his com-positions more strongly. At first glance, they seem to be somewhat pop-like or related to new realism. However, this is not so. They are an advanced development of Bergmann’s own artistic mentality corresponding to the Zeitgeist. lndiscriminate prophets of modern art often speak of internationalism in painting and ignore the fact that in spite of common characteristics, a strong regional peculiarity remains intact. Painters in Vienna do not paint like those in Madrid, painters in Paris differ from those in London, and painters in Tokyo are not like those in New York. l deem Bergmann’s way of forming colours into pictures specifically Central European.

EBERHARD ROTERS