Zelfportret bij het raam 1927

Leo Gestel made this drawing, *Self-Portrait by the Window*, with pen in hand at some point in his life, and you can almost feel him feeling his way around the forms. The lines don't quite meet; they hover and suggest. There’s something playful and honest in the way Gestel uses the pen, it’s like he’s thinking aloud. The drawing has this lightness and openness about it, like a sketch in a journal, capturing a moment in time. Look at the way the flowers in the foreground are defined by a collection of marks, each one slightly different, slightly imperfect. Now, check out the landscape through the window in the background: a man in a boat, cows grazing. It’s all there, but rendered in this super-simplified, almost cartoonish way. You know, this reminds me a little of Picasso’s drawings, especially in the way Gestel reduces everything to its basic shapes. And just like Picasso, there’s a sense that Gestel is constantly experimenting, pushing the boundaries of what a drawing can be. It’s all about the process, the act of seeing and translating that vision onto paper.