Aalscholver 1934 - 1936

Curator: Here we have Leo Gestel's drawing, Aalscholver, created between 1934 and 1936. It’s currently housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It's immediately striking. Such simple materials—ink and pencil—yet so effective. It feels like a captured moment from a personal sketchbook, almost unfinished in its raw energy. Curator: Yes, it captures an essence. The cormorant, rendered with such precision in its features, carries considerable symbolic weight. Cormorants often represent adaptability, resourcefulness, and a connection to the depths. Editor: I’m drawn to the density of the line work, almost obsessively applied in layers. Look how it builds the form, defining muscle and feather. The scratchy lines create texture but also feel hurried, economical. It emphasizes the process of mark-making, showing the hand of the artist. Curator: The economical approach perhaps points towards an observation not just of the bird, but its integration within the landscape, suggesting a much wider relationship that might imply endurance or, at times, isolation. Notice the direction of the surrounding line work in relation to the cormorant and how that contributes to your impression. Editor: True, the cormorant feels grounded by the very texture that surrounds it. Did the artist make preliminary sketches or studies? I find myself interested in his working methods. It's likely more than a fleeting, opportunistic record. Curator: Little documentation survives which attests Gestel's detailed preliminary processes in general. His oeuvre attests a tendency to revisit subject matters through a number of variations, suggesting perhaps he retained interest and therefore practiced similar visual refrains with a number of material explorations, not necessarily to arrive at perfect naturalism but rather symbolic continuity. Editor: A fascinating peek into Gestel's creative practice and the materiality of that practice through his deliberate yet free approach. I might think about the environmental and economic factors affecting paper access and ink supplies for this time as well, and consider what choices had to be made by the artist at this time and how this might affect what appear to be simple choices. Curator: Indeed, a sketch holds many insights when viewed as a synthesis of artistic decision and cultural history. Editor: Absolutely. The drawing encourages close observation and provokes interesting ideas about the means through which creative processes inform the artwork's conceptual outcome.