Twee bloemen 1939 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing of two flowers with pencil on paper. The paper is almost like a page from a sketchbook, and you can see the tentative quality of the line as if he were feeling his way around the forms, trying to catch their essence. I can imagine him lightly touching the paper with the tip of his pencil, letting the lines emerge almost unconsciously. There's a softness to the drawing, a gentleness in the way the flowers are rendered. Gestel doesn’t seem interested in perfect representation. Instead, he uses just a few lines to suggest the curves and folds of the petals. It reminds me a little of some of Matisse’s drawings, where he captures so much with so little. It’s all about suggestion, about letting the viewer fill in the blanks. These artists show us how the simplest marks can convey the most profound emotions and ideas.