Briefkaart aan Willem Bogtman Possibly 1922

This is the back of a Briefkaart, or postcard, to Willem Bogtman, by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst. It’s all done with a kind of casual elegance; the handwriting is free and loose, like notes scribbled while your mind is elsewhere. The card is divided into two halves, text scrawled on the left, address neatly laid out on the right. Look closely and you can see the postal stamp which echoes the style of handwriting, the frank mark firm but fading. Everything feels very immediate, a message dashed off in a moment. I think about the simple act of writing; the pressure of pen on paper, the flow of ink. Roland Holst's postcard reminds me of artists like Cy Twombly, or closer to our time, someone like Hanne Darboven, who use writing as a form of drawing. The everyday, made beautiful.