Vier paarden 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel drew these four horses with pencil on paper at an unknown date. Look how the marks are so tentative. You can almost see him feeling his way around the form of each animal, searching and mapping as he goes. I wonder what he was thinking as he put down these lines, maybe it was a study in preparation for something bigger, or perhaps it was an attempt to catch something real, something alive. The horses emerge from the page, almost ghost-like, their presence defined by the bare minimum of marks. This makes me think about the relationship between drawing and seeing; like, how the simplest gesture can convey so much. Gestel has a real sensitivity to the expressive potential of line, he shares something with Van Gogh. And, of course, the history of art is full of artists finding inspiration in the work of those who came before, adding their own voices to a conversation that never really ends. What do you see? How do these horses speak to you?