Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1919

This letter to Philip Zilcken was written by Rose Imel, sometime around 1919, using pen on paper. It’s all about the writing, of course, the pressure of the pen on the page, the way the ink bleeds slightly, becoming a little fatter at the curves. It's a very physical thing, writing, just like painting. I love the way the letters lean and loop, some darker than others, depending on the pressure. There’s one word on the second line, “corres” I think, where the letters bunch together like a little knot, it’s almost a drawing in itself. You can feel the energy of the writer, as if they want to get the words down as quickly as possible, but still with a certain elegance and care. The act of writing, of course, is like the act of artmaking itself, a kind of translation of thoughts and feelings into marks on a surface, not unlike Cy Twombly’s scrawls that read like graffiti but are also highly considered marks. Both invite us to read between the lines, to find meaning not just in the words, but in the spaces between them.