Landschap met boerderij tussen bomen 1929

This landscape with a farm among the trees by Leo Gestel is worked in charcoal. Can you feel the artist searching? He’s there, feeling his way through the scene, charcoal dust lifting from the page. The light is strange, like it's being swallowed up somehow. The trees and buildings seem to huddle together, protecting themselves. Gestel’s really working that charcoal, smudging and layering, trying to capture not just what he sees, but how it feels to be there, in that place, at that time. I bet he was thinking about other artists while making this – maybe the Barbizon school – artists obsessed with capturing the quiet drama of rural life. I can imagine him, charcoal in hand, nodding to those painters while pushing further, making it his own. Art is just one conversation after another, right? We all keep adding our voices, our marks, and every now and then we make something new.