Untitled [torso of a nude with her legs crossed] 1955 - 1967

This drawing of a nude with crossed legs is by Richard Diebenkorn, and it's rendered with simple, almost tentative lines. The charcoal has a lovely, dry quality, like it's barely clinging to the page. Look how the form emerges with such economy. The pressure of the charcoal varies, so the line weight thickens and thins, giving a real sense of the artist's hand moving across the paper. I'm drawn to the way Diebenkorn captures the essence of the figure without getting bogged down in detail. It reminds me of Matisse’s line drawings. There's a similar kind of effortless grace in the way he describes the body. Like Diebenkorn's later abstract paintings, this drawing is about the push and pull between representation and abstraction, about finding the balance between what we see and how we feel. There's something intimate and vulnerable about it, too. It leaves room for us to project our own experiences and emotions onto the work, which, for me, is what art is all about.