Untitled [landscape] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn’s ‘Untitled [landscape]’ seems to have emerged through layers of watery paint and charcoal scribbles. The blue bleeds into the charcoal; shapes emerge and retreat. You can imagine him, squinting, trying to figure it out. I sympathize with Diebenkorn's struggle—that feeling when you're wrestling with the paint and charcoal. It reminds me of those drawings where you start with a scribble and then try to find the image within it. Look closely: see how the grey-blue wash of the road leads you into the scene, toward the blurry houses. The painting’s surface is thin, washy, fleeting—like a memory. He made so many paintings of this kind of ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ landscape in and around his home in California. I find myself looking at this and other painters, like Fairfield Porter and Joan Mitchell—artists always in conversation with each other, riffing on ideas. They remind us that painting is about trying to find some form in the mess.