Leo Gestel - Peasant with Plough and Draft Horse, 1927

Leo Gestel (1881-1941)

Peasant with plough and draft horse

1927

Signed and dated lower left “Leo Gestel IV 1927”

Charcoal on paper

40 x 25 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Amsterdam.

Condition:

In good condition.

Additional information:

Leo Gestel (1881–1941) belongs to the most important innovators of Dutch art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was trained by his father, the painter Willem Gestel, and developed into an exceptionally versatile artist who continually explored new styles and techniques. From luminism and impressionism he experimented with fauvism, cubism, futurism and expressionism. His travels played an important role in this development. He worked in Paris, Bergen, Mallorca, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Flanders. His stay on Mallorca in 1914 was a particular high point: influenced by the intense light and landscape, he developed a strongly abstracted visual language combining cubist and futurist influences. Back in the Netherlands, Gestel became one of the key figures of the Bergen School.

Alongside his continual search for artistic renewal, Gestel remained fascinated by simple rural life. Farms, agricultural workers, harvest scenes, cows and especially horses recur throughout his oeuvre. During his travels through Flanders in 1925–1927 he made numerous sketches of farmers, agricultural work and horses, as is also evident from several sketchbooks now held in the Rijksmuseum. The Peasant with Plough and Draft Horse (1927) also dates from this period, of which several versions are known, including one in the Rijksmuseum collection (object number RP-T-2010-43-213). Gestel depicts the peasant and horse monumentally from behind, with the powerful movement of the animal and the rhythmic lines of plough, body and landscape elevating the work almost into a symbolic image of rural labour.