Bandontwerp voor: Uren met Schopenhauer. Boeken van wijsheid en schoonheid, 1913 1913

This is Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries’s Bandontwerp voor: Uren met Schopenhauer, made in 1913. It's a book design featuring blues and whites. I like to imagine what the artist was thinking, all those years ago. Perhaps Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries was sitting at his desk, late at night, wrestling with typeface. It can’t have been easy. Just look at those ornate flourishes on the page! It’s really something to handle materials and try to make something beautiful. The letters here aren’t quite uniform. Some of the lines are thicker than others, and you can see where the artist tried to correct a mistake. I think this speaks to a kind of humanity. You can feel Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries there, in the work. All artists, whether they know it or not, are in conversation with each other, across time. Each artwork builds on what came before, echoing and answering.