Diebenkorn (July)

Richard Diebenkorn produced a lifetime of abstract paintings that confront us with the fact that landscape is about air. When we visit Emerald in July we understand the Chinese masters who use dense fog to separate higher trees from roadways and then valleys below, the one touch of colour a red maple. Similarly, French masters like Claude Monet come to mind when we find ourselves in January somewhere like Queenscliff, breezy and spacious. Diebenkorn presents us with huge atmospheres. We go looking for details that constitute our landscape expectations: buildings, fauna, flora, pavilions. But landscape does not exist without air.