Vrouw met gespreide armen boven een landschap 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this oil on paper, called 'Woman with outstretched arms above a landscape,' and I can just imagine his process. He’s working it out, figuring it out, letting the image shift and emerge, through error and intuition. I feel for him, standing there, looking, thinking, brush in hand, maybe squinting a little. What’s he thinking? Maybe something like: How can I make this figure float? And what if she’s holding something, like, impossibly, the two sides of the painting together? The paint is laid on pretty thick in places. See how the blues on either side feel solid, weighty, holding her in place? The light and dark shades of brown create depth but also a kind of awkwardness to her figure. The body is almost melting into the landscape. Gestel's really doing something with that gesture, those outstretched arms—he’s connecting her, maybe us too, to everything. Painters have been talking to each other this way for centuries. This piece really captures how painting is a form of embodied expression, full of ambiguity, open to endless interpretations.