Man in een motorboot 1891 - 1941

Editor: So, here we have "Man in een motorboot," or "Man in a Motorboat," a drawing by Leo Gestel, dating somewhere between 1891 and 1941. It looks like it’s rendered in pencil and ink. There's something so immediate about the quick, almost cartoonish lines... it feels like I'm looking right into the artist's sketchbook. What jumps out at you about this piece? Curator: Oh, I love this! It's pure Gestel—so much contained within a few seemingly simple lines. To me, it whispers of fleeting moments, observations caught on the fly. Imagine him sketching this on a breezy afternoon, capturing the essence of these figures and the boat, not aiming for photorealism, but for the feeling of movement, the glint of light on water. The slight distortion of the figures – have you noticed how they’re almost abstracted into geometric shapes? Editor: I see what you mean! It's like he's playing with form and reduction. Curator: Exactly! It makes you wonder what was more important to Gestel: accurately depicting the scene, or conveying the idea of it. Maybe both? This looks very modern for that period! Also, notice the deliberate emptiness around the figures. How does that negative space influence your reading of the artwork? Editor: That’s a great point. The empty space makes the figures feel more isolated. Almost like they're adrift. Curator: Yes! Perhaps lost in thought or in a world rapidly changing, between world wars, if we are to believe the time span! Gestel is a bit of a shapeshifter—he dabbled in so many styles, but there’s always this thread of introspection and quirky observation running through his work. It makes you wonder, what’s the story *he* saw in this motorboat? Editor: I hadn’t considered that at all! Thinking about the space between the figures as its own kind of presence really reframes the whole drawing for me.