Summery-lush park vistas flooded with light, people at leisure, vacationers at the refreshing water, sitting in gardens between dapples of sunlight, but above all the ever-recurring fruit baskets and flowers, in bouquets and beds: these are the subjects-almost sprung to life from the late 191h century-in the paintings of Jürgen Schmiedekarnpf. Paradoxically, with them he has again taken a step closer to reality. The optical fractures built into his earlier paintings seem to have vanished. That which is real, the findings of the eye, is no longer relativized by inscribed abstract patterns. The sensuous element of painting is no longer domesticated by erudite allusions to the history of art and painting. Schmiedekampf again lives painting to the full. Here his red-cheeked apples do not disclaim their origins in Cezanne, and his robust grapes almost ostentatiously take their place in the great tradition of Dutch still-life painting of the Golden Age. Yet by reveling in the luxuriousness of fruit, materials and ingredients, in the glowing delights of the table, he quotes-and at the same time goes beyond- his models: Jürgen Schmiedekampf offers more than just painted references to Veldzquez and Delacroix, Corinth and Kokoschka. He looks back without epigonously longing to be back, he quotes, paraphrasing openly without copying freely. For it becomes quite clear that his primary concern is to move color on the canvas in his own way; eschewing stylistic contortions and sudden impulses, he positions, differentiates, arranges, in short: composes. I paint, therefore I am. If in so doing Schmiedekampf brings the joys of the palate into the picture, then eating and drinking are nothing more than an indirect intention. He has a slightly different sort of gourmets in mind. His target group are lovers of painting, In the age of electronic media, computer-generated images, anyone who today still (or once more?) takes up a brush really should no longer have to give any reasons for doing so.