Afternoon Sun

The word luminism was brand new in the Netherlands in 1908, coined that year for exactly the kind of painting Gestel was making here. He had come back from Paris a few years before, taken with the neo-impressionist idea that colour should be split into separate touches and left to mix in the viewer's eye rather than on the palette. So the afternoon glow in this small canvas is built from loose, contrasting dots, warm set against cool, and the light you sense is really assembled by your own eye. It measures about 41 by 50 centimetres, one of the earliest luminist paintings he made.