Untitled [nude seated with her hands on her knees] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled drawing of a nude, seated with her hands on her knees, using ink on paper. It looks like a constellation of little marks. That inky outline, it's so confident, but also so vulnerable. A dark contour defines the figure, and it doesn't seem like he labored over it, it's like one, continuous, spontaneous gesture. The spattering of colored dots around the figure is really fascinating. They are kind of random, but also deliberate. The creaminess of the paper, juxtaposed with that stark black line, it's like a dance between clarity and ambiguity. The hand on the left, how he renders the fingers with such simple, direct strokes, it reminds me of Matisse. It’s all about that reduction to the essential, and that’s what makes it so powerful. It reminds you that art is not about perfection, it’s about feeling.