Chabot Valley 1955

Diebenkorn made "Chabot Valley," a small oil on board, and, wow, what a beauty. Look at these marks, and you can just imagine him outside, squinting, trying to figure out what to leave in, what to leave out. It feels like a constant negotiation between representation and abstraction. I can imagine him painting, scraping back, squinting again. The electric pole to the right is so perfect. Like a Joan Mitchell painting, it's all about those imperfect rectangles, each plane bumping up against the next. It's like he's saying, "I'm here, in front of this thing, trying to capture it, but also knowing I can't." I always feel like painters are talking to each other across time, looking, stealing, borrowing. We're all just trying to figure out how to make sense of the world, one brushstroke at a time.