Olifant op boek (schets) before 1936

Leo Gestel sketched this elephant on a book, we don’t know exactly when, using what looks like pen and ink. Isn't it fascinating how simple strokes can bring something so solid to life? The cross-hatching that creates the elephant’s form is really where the action is for me; the ink’s a deep black, and the paper peeks through, giving it all a vibrating energy, like the thing is made of static. Gestel lets us see the labor, not hiding the marks but building the form out of them, one by one. I love the way the little eye shines out from all that dark scribble, and how the simple form of the book anchors the whole image. It reminds me a little of Odilon Redon’s charcoal drawings, these dark, dreamlike images that seem to come from some other place. Gestel gives us something similar here, a quiet but powerful image that lingers in the mind. It's like a conversation across time, isn't it?