Untitled [woman drinking from cup] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing of a woman drinking from a cup with charcoal on paper. I love the way the marks are so present, they don't try to pretend to be anything other than charcoal lines on paper, and yet they conjure a whole scene, a figure in space. There's something so immediate about charcoal, you can see the speed and the pressure of the artist's hand in each stroke. Look at how he builds up the shadows on her face and hair with these dense, almost scribbled lines, compared to the lighter, more delicate strokes that define the folds of her shirt. That layering creates a real sense of depth and volume, and the way the lines trail off into the blank paper makes it feel like the drawing is still in progress, like a thought still forming. It reminds me a bit of some of Giacometti's drawings, that same searching, tentative quality, as if the artist is trying to grasp something elusive. There's an honesty to that approach, an acceptance of ambiguity, that I find really compelling.