Cityscape I 1963

Richard Diebenkorn’s "Cityscape I" is a painting that feels like it’s been built up layer by layer, almost like a memory. It is currently housed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The blocks of colour, mostly greens, greys, and browns, are laid down with a kind of casual intensity, like he’s figuring it out as he goes. I love how the paint isn’t trying to hide anything, you can see the strokes, the decisions, the history of the making. There's one dark grey stripe, almost like a road, that runs down the canvas. It's not perfectly straight and it sort of bleeds into the green next to it. It’s this kind of imprecision that makes the whole painting feel alive. It reminds me a bit of Fairfield Porter, in the way he captures the everyday, but with a twist. Diebenkorn isn't just showing us a place, he's showing us how he sees, how he feels, how he paints. It’s like he's inviting us into a conversation, one that doesn't have a neat ending.