Paard en vogel 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing of a horse and a bird with what looks like charcoal on paper. I can almost imagine Gestel's hand moving across the page, tentatively at first, feeling out the shapes, then more confidently, committing to the bold outlines of the horse and the bird. It’s so simple, almost childlike, yet there’s something deeply sophisticated in its reduction of form to the barest essentials. I wonder if Gestel was thinking about Picasso or Braque when he made this? The way he’s simplified the forms reminds me of their Cubist experiments. The horse, so solid and grounded, and the bird, soaring freely, feel like two sides of a coin. And that one dark patch on the horse's back, like a shadow or a wound, gives the whole thing an emotional charge. Gestel is in conversation with so many artists and ideas here. It makes me want to pick up a charcoal stick myself and see what happens.