Galopperende paarden 1891 - 1941

Curator: Leo Gestel created this work, "Galopperende Paarden," sometime between 1891 and 1941. It's currently held here at the Rijksmuseum. You're looking at a drawing executed in pencil. What springs to mind for you when you first see it? Editor: There's a definite energy to it— a sense of wild, untamed movement. They seem almost spectral, emerging from or dissolving into the background. Curator: Gestel really captures that dynamic feeling, doesn't he? The lines are so free and energetic, especially in the foregrounded horse. It feels like a study, an exploration of form and motion. You see these sketches where the lines almost disappear, creating a dreamlike effect. Editor: Absolutely. I find myself thinking about representations of freedom, the wild west narratives that frequently glorified notions of unbounded spaces during this period. Yet that ideal of liberty was intertwined with narratives of settler colonialism and oppression. How might Gestel, consciously or unconsciously, be echoing these social undercurrents of his era in the horses? Curator: That's a really interesting lens. Horses often symbolize power, freedom, even nobility. Considering the social context, it could be read as a commentary, a reflection on the complexities of freedom. Or perhaps, in its purest form, it is an ode to animal beauty, freedom removed from social constraints and read more literally as a sense of breaking free. Editor: Maybe Gestel is engaging with a kind of primitivism? A yearning for a world less bound by societal structures, but without fully escaping them, since they appear confined within the image? Curator: Possibly. What strikes me most is the way the landscape, that sparse line, hints at vastness. It lets the horses dominate, telling their story more clearly. It almost frees the viewer to create their own setting for them. Editor: Yes, exactly. I see this work now not as a simple drawing of horses, but as an artwork wrestling with freedom and power, a window into Gestel’s world—and ours. Curator: Well, it’s funny, isn't it? A seemingly simple sketch and it’s off to the races! A brief pencil drawing that, by exploring ideas of movement and wildness, provokes reflection and even conversation!