Palo Alto Circle
Diebenkorn's earliest paintings reflect his interest in Edward Hopper's style, which is very much in evidence here, with its realistic depiction of an American scene expressed in the stark contrasts between shadow and light. We see before us, spread laterally across the picture surface, an uninhabited cityscape. The background consists of the sky, punctuated by the hotel sign, telephone poles, and vents - all indicators of contact with people and the outside world. In the middle ground sits the hotel itself, with shops below at street level, in front of which is a fence separating it from - at the same time, it unites with - the foreground chain link fence and railroad tracks. These railroad tracks also connect to the outside world, leading, as they do, out of town. They contrast with the homey, but stately and enduring, presence of the warmly lit hotel. The streetlamp at the far right balances all the horizontals in the painting while helping to fill in the negative space of the sky. Significantly, it is not lit - it is the warm light of day on the rich stucco surface that has captured the artist's attention. The artist's treatment of the formal elements of this work points to his innate sense of the abstract surface, which would become characteristic of his work.
By Theartstory
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