Untitled [nude reclining with her head back] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a nude figure reclining with her head back, and it's like catching a fleeting moment. The marks are spare but so expressive. I can almost feel the artist circling around the form, trying to pin it down, maybe losing it, finding it again. The line is like a caress, tentative, feeling its way. I'm thinking about him drawing, the model posing, the charcoal or pencil moving across the paper. Did he struggle with that arm, the way it seems to float above the body? I bet he did. I struggle with arms too. But it’s in those imperfections, those wobbles and corrections, that the drawing really comes alive. It’s like a dance between the eye, the hand, and the subject. A conversation, really. We're all just trying to figure it out, one line at a time.