Untitled [side view of female nude] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a female nude, with graphite on paper. I really get a sense of the artist here, circling round the model, trying to grasp a sense of her weight, her volume. Look at all the searching marks, the density of line, a blizzard of marks round the lower body, scratched into being, like a sculptor with a knife. I can feel him thinking, each mark a decision, as he constructs the figure. It's all about the process, the way the forms emerge from the white ground, the ghost of an image in the making. There is an energy here, a kind of nervous tension like he is unsure. It reminds me of a Cy Twombly drawing, or maybe Giacometti. All these painters building on each other's ideas, across time, riffing on each other, keeping the conversation going. It's beautiful.