Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1919

This letter to Philip Zilcken, by Vittorio Pica, looks like it was composed in soft graphite, the writing precise and flowing across the page. You can imagine the nib of the pen gliding and scratching lightly on the paper, the artist pausing and thinking, the hand moving again. I wonder what he was like, this Philip Zilcken? What was their relationship? I feel like the work must have been so considered. All those revisions, the crossings out—the words on the page dance between intention and chance. The materiality of the paper, its texture and weight, must have been part of the experience of writing, a very sensory process. And I think that's what connects us to artists across time, this haptic exchange of ideas. Every stroke, every word, is an intimate gesture that resonates with the artist and the viewer. It's an ongoing conversation across the centuries.