Untitled [female nude seated in a partially draped chair] 1955 - 1967

This drawing, by Richard Diebenkorn, is all about quick, dark lines on a pale ground. It probably came into being through layering and emergence, you know, trial, error and intuition. You can tell Diebenkorn's really sympathizing with his model, trying to understand her pose, how her weight shifts as she sits. The drawing is made up of these searching marks. See the hatching on the draped chair? It's as if the artist is building up the form through touch, feeling his way into the subject. I imagine he’s thinking about Cezanne here, maybe Matisse, and all those guys who used line to describe and also, like, *feel* the world. The materiality of the drawing—the tooth of the paper, the soft give of the charcoal— shapes our experience. There's this ongoing conversation between artists across time. Diebenkorn is in dialogue with the past, but also making something totally new. It’s like he's embracing ambiguity, allowing for multiple readings and interpretations. You can really feel it here.