Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1917 - 1921

This letter to Jan Veth, by Willem Witsen, feels like a study in mark-making, made with ink on paper, a flurry of dark strokes against a pale background. The handwriting almost becomes abstract, a field of textured lines. Imagine Witsen hunched over his desk, pen in hand, grappling with the weight of communication. What was he thinking as he wrote this? What was the urgency or the ease of the situation? Each stroke seems to carry a bit of his mood, a sense of deliberation mixed with the speed of thought. The strokes are fluid, creating a sense of rhythm and flow. There’s a dance-like quality, a repetition of forms that reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scribbled paintings. I see a connection between the act of writing and the act of painting. It's all about gesture and expression. Artists like Witsen and Twombly invite us to see the world as a continuous field of marks and traces. They’re in conversation with each other, across time, inspiring new ways of seeing.