Richard Diebenkorn Writings
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Artist's writing
Current owner:
Richard Diebenkorn Foundation Archives
Credit Line:
© Richard Diebenkorn Foundation RD number:
RDFA.156 Description
Transcription:
[Image 1]
[strikethrough] A “straight,” unadulterated kind of symbolism makes the best talking point to me. My own attempts along this line discourage me as well as those of others. It’s either pat and unequivocal or or super charged by some star. There is however [double strikethrough] extremely [/double strikethrough] intense painting which talks about our extremely consistent cosmos. Some desparate [sic] painters are at work in this area [double strikethrough] [illegible] obtained [/double strikethrough] and their products are as delicious as anything to be seen now or in the past.
I thought Dubuffet’s painting had some answers for today before I saw the juxstaposition [sic] of one with a large Matisse
[Image 2]
The way things go today can legitimately bring out despair
I find extreme irony [/strikethrough]
What is [strikethrough] most [/strikethrough] ironic in [strikethrough] a consideration [/strikethrough] contemporary painting is that the work of the desparate [sic] man, [strikethrough] the man most apparently like Dostoievsky [/strikethrough] is elegant in the extreme.
It is as though Dostoievsky, fatigued at last, turns his attention to what he considers a fabulously consistent cosmos or self [strikethrough] and like Van Dyck in the service [/strikethrough] which in turn brings out the Van Dyck in him.
Misrepresentation in the name of style.
[Image 1]
[strikethrough] A “straight,” unadulterated kind of symbolism makes the best talking point to me. My own attempts along this line discourage me as well as those of others. It’s either pat and unequivocal or or super charged by some star. There is however [double strikethrough] extremely [/double strikethrough] intense painting which talks about our extremely consistent cosmos. Some desparate [sic] painters are at work in this area [double strikethrough] [illegible] obtained [/double strikethrough] and their products are as delicious as anything to be seen now or in the past.
I thought Dubuffet’s painting had some answers for today before I saw the juxstaposition [sic] of one with a large Matisse
[Image 2]
The way things go today can legitimately bring out despair
I find extreme irony [/strikethrough]
What is [strikethrough] most [/strikethrough] ironic in [strikethrough] a consideration [/strikethrough] contemporary painting is that the work of the desparate [sic] man, [strikethrough] the man most apparently like Dostoievsky [/strikethrough] is elegant in the extreme.
It is as though Dostoievsky, fatigued at last, turns his attention to what he considers a fabulously consistent cosmos or self [strikethrough] and like Van Dyck in the service [/strikethrough] which in turn brings out the Van Dyck in him.
Misrepresentation in the name of style.