Untitled [view of back and buttocks of a kneeling female nude] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a kneeling female nude with what looks like charcoal or graphite on paper. The smudgy lines and frantic hatching really make me think about the act of seeing and drawing as one and the same. I wonder, what was Diebenkorn thinking when he made this drawing? Was he trying to capture a likeness, or something else entirely? The lines seem to dance around the form, almost as if he’s trying to capture the feeling of the body, rather than the body itself. I love the way he uses line to suggest volume and weight, especially in the buttocks. There’s a real sense of presence here, a feeling of the model occupying space. Diebenkorn’s gestural marks remind me of other artists like Willem de Kooning, who were also interested in exploring the relationship between abstraction and figuration. It's like artists riff off each other across time. They see something another artist does and they respond in their own way. The conversation never stops, and we get to listen in.