Brief aan Willem Bogtman Possibly 1943 - 1949

Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk wrote this letter to Willem Bogtman in 1943, probably with a fountain pen. Look at the way the ink bleeds slightly into the paper. This speaks to a kind of urgency, doesn't it? The words, though carefully formed, seem to spill out, eager to connect. I often think about the physicality of writing, how the pressure of the pen, the texture of the paper, all contribute to the meaning. See how the loops and curves of the handwriting create a kind of rhythm across the page. It reminds me of musical notation, each stroke a note in a personal melody. There's a vulnerability in this kind of direct communication, and I find that touching. As an artist I'm interested in the dialogue between intention and accident, the way the material itself shapes the final outcome. This reminds me a little of Cy Twombly's looser, more expressive text-based works, where writing becomes a form of drawing, a dance between language and line. And in the end, art, like a handwritten letter, is about connection, a reaching out across time and space.