Brief aan Philip Zilcken before 1909

This is a letter to Philip Zilcken, probably from sometime in the first half of the 20th century, and what strikes me first is the mark-making itself. The controlled, cursive handwriting feels very far away from how we communicate today, right? I mean, look at the physical labor that went into forming each letter, the careful looping and connecting, it’s so precise and consistent. You can almost feel the rhythm of the writer’s hand moving across the page, and the ink is this lovely faded blue. There's this one spot in the middle where it looks like there was an imperfection in the paper, or maybe a drop of something splashed there. It’s so simple, but it suddenly turns the whole thing into a physical object, not just a message. It reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly's blackboard paintings, even though they’re so different. Both are about gesture, and about the beauty of something handmade, you know? It makes you think about all the different ways we try to communicate, and how each one leaves its own kind of mark. Art is always an exchange, a kind of letter, from one person to another, across time.