Briefkaart aan Willem Bogtman before 1926

This is a postcard by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst to Willem Bogtman, made without a specified date, but definitely with ink and paper. You know, writing is a form of drawing, right? Here, the penmanship, the texture of the ink on paper, it’s so immediate. It’s a direct record of thought and feeling. The handwritten words create a dance on the card, they give it a rhythm and a kind of vulnerable immediacy. And this little stamp! It’s so much more than postage, it is a tiny portrait, a marker of time and place. There’s something really beautiful about how such a small, ephemeral object can carry so much meaning and emotion. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scribbled notes, or even the way Agnes Martin drew lines on a grid, as if the simple act of making a mark could contain a whole world. For me, this card shows that art is an ongoing conversation, a dialogue that spans time and connects us all.