Wayne Thiebaud was fascinated by the dramatic vistas and abrupt disjunctions of the San Francisco landscape. Denying the laws of normal perspective, San Francisco West Side Ridge is a commotion of rectangles, horizontals, and diagonals that thrust downward and obliquely to destabilize streets and urban buildings. Parked vehicles seem pinned to vertical curbs; turrets, palm trees, and a tiny figure on a balcony confirm life at the top of the precipice; and shadows cast by street lamps point like arrows to the dramatic drop-off at the right.