Publiek bij een wielerwedstrijd 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing of a crowd watching a bike race with black chalk on paper. Look at those scribbled marks, all vibrating with energy! You can almost hear the whizz of the bikes and the roar of the crowd. I can imagine Gestel standing there, trying to capture the essence of the event. Maybe he's thinking about how to convey the speed and excitement with just a few lines. Is that the Dunlop tyre advert in the background? It’s as if he’s distilling the scene down to its most basic elements, like a recipe that’s been simplified to its core ingredients. This reminds me of other artists like Kirchner or even de Kooning, who were also trying to find new ways to represent movement and modernity. We're all in conversation with one another, all the time! Painting can reveal that to us.