Zonder titel (roos) 1935 - 1936

Curator: I see an intensity here, an almost brutalist interpretation of something usually considered so delicate. The heavy lines and stark contrast... it feels powerful. Editor: We are observing "Untitled (Rose)," a pen and ink drawing by Leo Gestel, dating from around 1935-1936. Gestel was a significant figure in Dutch modernism. This drawing is held at the Rijksmuseum. What do you make of the form itself? Curator: The petals feel less like a natural, blooming rose and more like sharply defined geometric shapes. The ink bleeds in places, almost like shadow engulfing form, giving the impression of constant decay and change, maybe even as an omen of some kind. Editor: Yes, the rose as a symbol carries so much baggage doesn't it? From romantic love and beauty, to secrecy and, of course, mortality. Given the rise of fascism in Europe at the time of its making, I wonder how Gestel was grappling with ideals around beauty, tradition, and violence through the very act of abstraction? Curator: That's a compelling reading. To me, it’s almost an anti-rose. A stripping away of the sentimentality that often surrounds floral imagery. Roses are culturally tied to romance, purity and yet the density of the line work is anything but those things, no softness present at all. A shadow across those expected connotations? Editor: Perhaps he’s subverting expectations of beauty itself. By taking an easily recognizable symbol and fracturing it into geometric abstractions, Gestel makes the viewer confront not only the rose, but also their relationship to the form. Think about how that would read amidst such turmoil in that specific period... Did he meant this act of dissembling to signify his world, perhaps? Curator: It feels like an active disruption. Something solid and known, splintered and then reformed on the page with an intent I’d suggest is consciously challenging something. Perhaps something sacred. Editor: Yes, the starkness pushes against complacency and expects action of the observer. Well, I think that we are only beginning to open the pages of meaning from the work of Leo Gestel, but it has been good to do so. Curator: Indeed, food for more thought as we proceed along the path.