Twee kussende stellen en een mannenhoofd 1891 - 1941

Curator: We’re standing now in front of Leo Gestel's "Twee kussende stellen en een mannenhoofd," or "Two Kissing Couples and a Man’s Head," a pencil drawing from between 1891 and 1941. What springs to mind? Editor: Fleeting thoughts, I guess? Scribbles that feel… illicit, like a peek into someone's private fantasies. The light pencil work and lack of detail make it feel vulnerable, unfinished, almost. Curator: It is definitely evocative! Thinking about the materials and process, this seems less like a finished piece and more like a raw, preliminary sketch. Gestel was likely experimenting, generating ideas for perhaps a larger, more developed work. The very nature of pencil on paper lends itself to such intimate, immediate expression. It's a stark contrast to the labor often concealed in the final, polished product. Editor: Exactly. It's honest in a way, isn't it? No attempt to hide the working process. You see the artist grappling with form, with emotion. Those embracing figures – barely there, just lines, but they radiate intimacy. And then, that isolated man’s head… is it observation, or is it voyeurism? The juxtaposition is fascinating, charged even, which challenges these so called normal "high art" boundaries with intimate material use. Curator: Perhaps he’s considering the loneliness that can exist even amidst closeness? The rapid lines of the pencil sketch only hint at the full emotion, leaving us, the viewers, to fill in the blanks with our own longings. I appreciate seeing those intimate thoughts with simple graphite on cheap paper! Editor: And the period – spanning fifty years, roughly – is crucial. Think of the social shifts, the changing attitudes towards sexuality, relationships... Gestel would be capturing these new thoughts in this sketchbook. That raw and rapid process allowed new social understanding to grow on the page. This work shows it plainly in material. Curator: Well, considering it is housed in the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, Gestel was capturing his cultural environment, in his own way and process, to express new thinking. Editor: Precisely, and through the use of accessible materials too! Curator: It’s remarkable how such a simple medium – pencil on paper – can convey so much emotional weight, isn’t it? This work, it just seems that, even through those humble materials, intimacy persists! Editor: And hopefully a spark is created to think of this work not as only emotion, but as process! Thanks to a small notebook, pencil and hand, now those ideas take form!