Olifant op boek (schets) before 1936

Here is a sketch of an elephant on a book, rapidly drawn with confident strokes of ink on paper by Leo Gestel. I like the economy of means. The artist has made an animal stand on a book and then sketched it, a figure of culture dominating nature. I imagine Gestel pacing back and forth, thinking, looking, and then quickly committing his idea to paper with a flurry of marks. The ink looks wet and alive, pooling in some areas and fading in others, giving the elephant a sense of depth and volume. Gestel would have looked at Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism and incorporated these avant-garde styles into his own work. Maybe he saw a Picasso painting and thought, “I can do that, but with an elephant!” Artists are constantly riffing off each other, borrowing ideas, and pushing boundaries. It's a never-ending conversation across time and space. Each mark is an invitation to engage in an open dialogue, where meaning is not fixed but emerges through the act of seeing and feeling.