Briefkaart aan Jan Ponstijn 1918

This postcard to Jan Ponstijn was made by Leo Gestel in November 1916 using ink and watercolour. I love the way Gestel uses these wispy, washy marks to create a really unsettling image. The palette is dark and muted, all greys and browns, punctuated by these splashes of crimson. There's a body in the foreground, surrounded by onlookers, and a shadowy figure lurking in the background. It’s so loose and gestural that the horror is sort of diffused, like a nightmare you can’t quite grasp. Look at the way the washes pool and bleed into each other, blurring the lines between the figures and the background, it's like the scene is dissolving before your eyes. Gestel reminds me a little of George Grosz, who was working around the same time. Both artists were interested in capturing the chaos and brutality of the modern world, but while Grosz went for a more biting satire, Gestel opts for this dreamy, hallucinatory atmosphere. It’s a reminder that art can be a space for confronting difficult truths, but also for exploring the ambiguities and uncertainties of human experience.