Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1903 - 1920

This letter was written in Amsterdam, in October 1903, by Joseph Mendes da Costa. It has looping and lively forms, and it makes me think about the act of writing itself, and how much that resembles drawing! I can imagine Mendes da Costa taking up his pen, dipping it in ink, and starting to write to Philip Zilcken. You can almost feel him thinking, considering each word and carefully forming each letter. Each stroke, each curl, a little dance on the page. It's like a performance! The ink is dark, almost black. I imagine it leaving a slightly raised texture on the page. A shadow. Think of Cy Twombly and his calligraphic lines, or even some of the abstract expressionists like Franz Kline, using the brush with their whole bodies. There is so much we can learn from people playing around with marks. They are, after all, in conversation with each other. This letter is evidence of that. They all respond to each other across time and space.