Grazend paard 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing of a grazing horse with pencil on paper, but when? Who knows, it doesn’t really matter. Gestel’s sketch has this lovely combination of simple contour lines and smudged shading. The economy of line is almost like a shorthand for a horse, but the shading gives it volume and weight. I love the way the shading seems to float on the surface, like it's not quite attached to the lines. Look at the way the back is almost completely filled in with pencil, creating a dark mass against the lighter paper. It reminds me that artmaking is a process of layering, of building up marks to create something new. It’s like Gestel is asking us to see the horse, not as a static object, but as an idea in motion. The horse is there but slightly out of reach, and I think of Marsden Hartley, who was doing similar things at around the same time. It’s a constant dialogue, a conversation between artists across time, each one adding their own voice to the mix.