Twee paarden en een veulen in een landschap 1928

Leo Gestel made this watercolor of horses and a foal with an unctuous palette of earth tones. You can see how the painting came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. Gestel builds up this pastoral scene with thin layers of paint and expressive lines. The brushstrokes are fluid and loose, giving a sense of movement and immediacy. Imagine Gestel outside, his eyes trained on the animals. What was he thinking about when he made this? How can the physicality of the watercolor shape our experience of the painting and contribute to its emotional resonances? The way the animals are placed one in front of the other is very deliberate, and reminds me of how Vuillard layered figures and objects to flatten space. Gestel has taken something from him. It emphasizes how artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another’s creativity across time. Painting is a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.