Untitled [side view of a female nude in an interior] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this untitled ink wash drawing of a female nude, and what grabs me is how he’s not just copying what he sees, but thinking through the shapes and the space with each stroke. The ink is fluid, almost like watercolor, and he's really playing with the push and pull of light and dark. Look at the way the figure is defined, not with hard outlines, but with these soft, blended edges that make her feel both present and dissolving into the background at the same time. There’s one dark, confident stroke that defines her arm, yet bleeds into the negative space. It’s these kinds of marks that tell me Diebenkorn was interested in the act of seeing as an active process, one that changes the thing you’re looking at. You see this kind of approach in the work of someone like Matisse. Art isn't about capturing a perfect likeness, but about discovering a new way of seeing.