Studieblad met zeven schetsjes van gebukte aardappelrooiers 1925 - 1927

This sheet of studies of potato harvesters was made by Leo Gestel, but when? It's hard to know, exactly. You know, when I look at these studies I just think of Vincent van Gogh and his paintings of peasants. There's that same feeling for the land and the people who work it. Gestel has used big, bold strokes of charcoal to capture the weight of the body bending. The marks are very clear and decisive. He really makes you feel the weariness of their work. I wonder what he was thinking as he drew? I wonder if he talked to the workers? I see him walking through the field, observing, trying to capture the essence of their movements on paper. Each sketch almost seems to be an experiment, a way of seeing how much information Gestel could convey with so few lines. It's like he’s asking: how can you make an image of a feeling?