Stilleven met appel, pijp en fles 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this still life with apple, pipe, and bottle with brush and ink. It's a punchy little scene. Look at those bold, assertive marks, like black paper cut-outs dancing in the light. It makes me wonder what Gestel was thinking as he composed this scene. Was he after some kind of formal harmony? Or just trying to capture a fleeting moment of beauty in everyday objects? I feel like he probably worked fast, intuitively. I know the feeling! I notice the way the objects are rendered with such deliberate simplicity; a way of seeing that connects to other modernist painters, like Cezanne, who was also interested in distilling the world down to its essential forms. The texture of the paper, the sheen of the ink, it all adds to the experience. We’re all just riffing off each other, in a way, passing ideas back and forth across time. Painting is an ongoing conversation.