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Lot Essay
Around 1913 Leo Gestel, Piet Mondriaan and Jan Sluijters were the three most influential modern painters in Amsterdam. They became increasingly dissatisfied with the two dominating artistic trends of the time, the stylized Idea painting and The Hague School. Instead they wanted to depict the essence itself in its profoundest and not its most apparent image. The pure shiny colours of French impressionism, post-impressionism and fauvism and later forms of cubism and futurism were their examples.
Leo Gestel found his own modern style in 1912 and made, according to Loosjes-Terpstra, his best work in 1913. She writes "1913 was a very prolific year. In the spring of 1913 the painter summarized, in a large retrospective exhibition, his complete development until then. The most extreme in style were the many-coloured mosaics of his futuristic flowerpieces". In the present work Gestel is clearly influenced by the formal-abstract side of Futurism. "Futurism primarily ment for him: the possibility to dynamise form, coulour and space. It was with this kind of work that Gestel exhbited at Herwald Walden's Erster Deutcher Herbstsalon in 1913 in Berlin. (A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Moderne Kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1987 (first ed. 1959), p. 143, p. 144)
To be included in the archives for the forthcoming Critical Catalogue being prepared by the 'Comité Leo Gestel'.
Leo Gestel found his own modern style in 1912 and made, according to Loosjes-Terpstra, his best work in 1913. She writes "1913 was a very prolific year. In the spring of 1913 the painter summarized, in a large retrospective exhibition, his complete development until then. The most extreme in style were the many-coloured mosaics of his futuristic flowerpieces". In the present work Gestel is clearly influenced by the formal-abstract side of Futurism. "Futurism primarily ment for him: the possibility to dynamise form, coulour and space. It was with this kind of work that Gestel exhbited at Herwald Walden's Erster Deutcher Herbstsalon in 1913 in Berlin. (A.B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Moderne Kunst in Nederland 1900-1914, Utrecht 1987 (first ed. 1959), p. 143, p. 144)
To be included in the archives for the forthcoming Critical Catalogue being prepared by the 'Comité Leo Gestel'.