Landschap met huis 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this landscape with house using what looks like graphite on paper. The landscape feels sketched, immediate. A horizon line, blocks of tone for a building, perhaps a tree, all rendered in such a way that the hand and the eye feel connected. You can imagine Gestel outdoors, maybe a bit chilly, quickly trying to capture a sense of place. I bet he liked the feel of the graphite stick in his fingers. Did he press hard? Did the tip get blunt? It is a very immediate way of working. There is a sense of a conversation with what he saw, but also with the materials he had in hand. And then there's the words... notes? A private language? For me, drawing is thinking and looking, all at once. You can see that here!