Zittende dame voor spiegel 1906

Curator: Let's talk about this drawing by Leo Gestel from 1906, “Zittende dame voor spiegel,” or “Seated Lady before a Mirror” here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Immediately, the reddish-brown hue of the pencil gives it a certain warmth. A feeling of quiet intimacy. Like a stolen glance into someone's private moment. Curator: Yes, exactly! And isn’t the quickness of the pencil strokes just marvelous? You can almost feel Gestel’s hand moving across the page, capturing this woman's ephemeral act of gazing into her reflection. The details in her dress versus the lack thereof around the face in the mirror create a wonderful tension between detail and...intangibility. Editor: Right, look at the skirt - clearly articulated ruffles. But what pencil does Gestel select, what hardness scale will provide such effect? I wonder what type of paper he would have used, the texture must be adequate enough to have provided such an aesthetic impact! The materials tell so much. Were these materials luxurious and difficult to acquire or not? This all influences what can be depicted by whom, and for whom. Curator: Materially speaking, I get what you're saying. But I also see a deliberate artistic choice to focus the clarity on the here and now of her presence. The face in the mirror then becomes this fleeting echo, a question mark about identity perhaps. I can see some Art Nouveau touches in how he's approached the lines of her hair and the overall mood. Editor: Intimism, I think. But Art Nouveau! To think that labor practices surrounding the mass manufacture of such pencils allowed the rapid development of such aesthetics! I am interested in that. The intimacy then relies on production to have allowed access to certain resources to Gestel. He certainly understood the assignment; make something beautiful but how many were omitted access from creating something equally "beautiful?" Curator: That's a valid perspective, thinking about access and who gets to create and under what conditions. But maybe there's also something beautifully democratic about pencil. It is ubiquitous and accessible; perhaps that's also the very power. Editor: Maybe so, maybe so. Overall though, I do agree there is beauty here. I have really found an understanding, and in looking deeper I do get more. Curator: Me too. There’s just such vulnerability in that reflected gaze, that moment of quiet contemplation. Gestel captures something very powerful here with rather unassuming material.