Brief aan jonkheer Hendrik Teding van Berkhout (1879-1969) Possibly 1933

This letter to Jonkheer Hendrik Teding van Berkhout was written in 1933 by Jo van Oosten Slingeland. The quick, looping marks made with the pen give the impression of someone dashing off a message, a train of thought captured mid-flow. I love how the ink varies in tone; it shows the pressure of the artist's hand, the changing speed and rhythm of the writing. See how some of the letters are thick and bold, while others are thin and wispy? It’s a bit like a landscape, with peaks and valleys. The slight bleed of the ink into the paper adds a tactile quality. You can almost feel the texture of the page. The whole thing has a casual, intimate feel, like a peek into someone's private correspondence. The red marks feel like an addition, maybe someone else responding or adding information later on, an added layer of time and interpretation. It reminds me a little of Cy Twombly's scrawled surfaces, a kind of controlled chaos where language becomes image. It's a reminder that art, like conversation, is an ongoing process, full of revisions, tangents, and second thoughts.