Cityscape I 1963

Richard Diebenkorn's *Cityscape I*, which is at SFMOMA, is all muted greens, grays, and browns, and those big geometric shapes making up the urban landscape. I like to imagine Diebenkorn out there, squinting at the light, trying to capture that particular hazy California atmosphere. The paint is neither thick nor thin, not drawing too much attention to itself. It’s more about the overall feeling, a kind of quiet observation. And that perspective! Looking down, maybe from a hill or a high window, flattening everything out. You can see how he’s pushing and pulling at the forms, trying to find a balance between representation and abstraction. It’s like he’s saying, "Yeah, this is a place, but it’s also just paint on canvas.” Diebenkorn, like many artists, was in conversation with the world around him and also the history of painting. And ultimately, that's what painting is: an ongoing dialogue, constantly reimagining how we see and experience the world.