Schip en een roeiboot 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing of boats with pencil on paper. You can see the immediacy of the medium, the quickness of the line, and the tone. It's like he's capturing a fleeting thought. I imagine Gestel standing there, squinting in the light, trying to capture the essence of the scene. He is probably thinking about other artists, like Cezanne, and how the essence of a thing can be drawn with simple lines and marks. I can feel the weight of his hand as he presses the pencil to the paper, the slight variations in pressure creating a range of tones. The horizontality of the ship relates to the horizontality of the water and the little figure in the rowing boat becomes part of it all. It speaks to me of the history of mark-making, the way we keep learning from each other, how one gesture inspires another across time. It reminds me how painting is an embodied process, full of uncertainty, and open to multiple interpretations.