Untitled [landscape with buildings] 1955 - 1967

This landscape with buildings was made by Richard Diebenkorn, and the way he uses these pastels, it feels like he's thinking out loud. It's all about the surface here, the way the colors sit next to each other. Look at the purple, how it’s not just one purple, but a mix, like he’s testing out different feelings. There's this one patch of pinky-purple on the right, it's almost like a shadow, but then it also feels like the whole building is glowing with an inner light. The strokes are so immediate, you can almost feel him pressing the pastel into the paper. It reminds me of Morandi, the way he keeps having a conversation with the same subject, trying to get to the heart of it, but knowing that the heart is always moving, always changing. Art is like that, it doesn't have fixed meanings.