A moment, or "window" of clarity

Walking around the Cantor looking quickly, and passing all these great moments in time, I kept walking back to where I usually go when I have been there before, and that is the contemporary art wing, and specifically the Bay Area painting section. Maybe the placement of Diebenkorn’s “Window”, visible from both entrances, set it so I am constantly engaged with the painting. Yet, when I finally stopped and engaged with it as a solo experience, I am instantly walking into the painting.

The chair on the bottom right corner of the large canvas (92” x 80”) breaks the picture plane making the interior part of my space. Upon studying the metal folding chair at a slightly awkward perspective, it is lit with a cool light that overlaps the sill of the window and my perception of the flat surface is projected back into space of the warm, intense exterior of the building. For now, I am in the building. I am in the painting. I am fully engaged and embodied by the work, and my investigation and associations become amplified.

Frames within frames, complementary warms and cools, relatable and ambiguous subject matter intertwine the composition. The application of the paint is very direct, as is the information presented at first glance. This is a space recorded at a specific moment in time. The pairing down of information, making the scene more abstracted creates further directness to the composition, as if we are dealing with just the formal tools of painting, which are working to convey some sort of mood.

Knowing about Diebenkorn, and reinforcing my background from the simple wall text, I know that he was follower of Matisse’s work, who had a great influence on his decision-making. In particular, comparing “The Window” to Matisse’s “View of Notre Dame,” one would make obvious relationships, not only between these two paintings in regards to there formal qualities, but also the influence this particular painting has on Diebenkorn’s whole “Ocean Park” series.

Windows looking out into the world, with incorporating interior space, make it very easy to engage with what is happening in Diebenkorn’s work. That is the beauty in it. A simple looking, yet complex break down of shape, line, color, light, perspective, and so on make this piece a window that is personal to Diebenkorn, yet part of my space in the world too. Upon further investigation of this work I am continually impressed with Diebenkorn’s eyes and hands, and I equally surprised and intrigued by images within this image, and other works of his, like the simple horizontal lines of color creating light and shadow in the frame of the circle to the left of the painting, which appears to be some form of a railing or piece of the architecture of the building. And that bright, bold orange shape (roof top) is just undeniable. The space in this painting is part of our world, because he says it is.