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Lot Essay
Leo Gestel is one of the very few Dutch artists who succeeded in successfully mastering the cubist painting method. After having abandoned the so-called luminist style in 1911, he explored new schemes of form and colour, mainly deriving from contemporary west European art. Gestel's cubism came to its full development during a long stay on the island of Majorca in 1914, a small paradise conjured up to him by his friend and colleague William Degouve de Nunques. Accompanied by his wife, his close friends the painters Else Berg en Mommie Schwarz and the Boendermaker family, he rented a small house overlooking the bay of Palma and the mountains behind it. Fascinated by the colourful landscape and in a very happy state of mind, he worked uninterruptedly on sketches and canvases. Piet Boendermaker said in 1941 in an interview: "In his quest for light Spain truely made a deep impression on him" (M.J. Brusse, 'Onder de menschen. De kunstverzamelaar Piet Boendermaker', Nieuwe Rotterdammer Courant, 9 April 1941).
Here he completely overcame his initial, somewhat half-hearted attempts to struggle out of the naturalist idiom. A.M. Hammacher writes: 'The restraint remains noticeable until 1914 on Majorca, when the numerous sketches in watercolour arise, beautiful in colour, arranged rhythmically and at the same time a preamble to the even stronger abstraction of the thinly painted harbour views and orchards. The oil paint has a pastel like (Cézanne) effect by now. The refined shades of colour are soft and there is a surprising sensitivity in the play of the planes. These works were to become the best a Dutch artist would execute during this period of rising to cubism. In it he would conquer the mainly decorative effect of the colours that characterises his still lives and flower pieces of 1911-12, in which he is still very dependent on Gauguin, stylising the forms to simplicity. And even before that, the turn from impressionism in 1910-11, transposing the large nudes into colour, apparently applying Seurat's technique, and intensifying the forms, in the beginning somewhat restraint, but after that by strengthening the contours. This typical Dutch cubism by Gestel of 1914, was of a very personal nature, and had nothing to do with Bracque and Picasso. It does not know brown, grey or black. A Cézanne kind of blue dominates, a tender green with warmer touches, sometimes an Ensor kind of clarity, but foremost the psychological atmosphere is quite different. It seems to be of a lighter joie de vivre, much more lyrical'. (cf.lit.: A.M. Hammacher, Stromingen en persoonlijkheden, een halve eeuw schilderkunst in Nederland (1900-1950), Amsterdam 1955, p. 104-105).
See for more information on the artist's cubist period: A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Moderne Kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1959, p. 149.
A photograph of the present lot can be found in the Leo Gestel Archive at the RKD, The Hague, no. 26547.
Here he completely overcame his initial, somewhat half-hearted attempts to struggle out of the naturalist idiom. A.M. Hammacher writes: 'The restraint remains noticeable until 1914 on Majorca, when the numerous sketches in watercolour arise, beautiful in colour, arranged rhythmically and at the same time a preamble to the even stronger abstraction of the thinly painted harbour views and orchards. The oil paint has a pastel like (Cézanne) effect by now. The refined shades of colour are soft and there is a surprising sensitivity in the play of the planes. These works were to become the best a Dutch artist would execute during this period of rising to cubism. In it he would conquer the mainly decorative effect of the colours that characterises his still lives and flower pieces of 1911-12, in which he is still very dependent on Gauguin, stylising the forms to simplicity. And even before that, the turn from impressionism in 1910-11, transposing the large nudes into colour, apparently applying Seurat's technique, and intensifying the forms, in the beginning somewhat restraint, but after that by strengthening the contours. This typical Dutch cubism by Gestel of 1914, was of a very personal nature, and had nothing to do with Bracque and Picasso. It does not know brown, grey or black. A Cézanne kind of blue dominates, a tender green with warmer touches, sometimes an Ensor kind of clarity, but foremost the psychological atmosphere is quite different. It seems to be of a lighter joie de vivre, much more lyrical'. (cf.lit.: A.M. Hammacher, Stromingen en persoonlijkheden, een halve eeuw schilderkunst in Nederland (1900-1950), Amsterdam 1955, p. 104-105).
See for more information on the artist's cubist period: A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Moderne Kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1959, p. 149.
A photograph of the present lot can be found in the Leo Gestel Archive at the RKD, The Hague, no. 26547.