Brief aan Pieter Haverkorn van Rijsewijk Possibly 1904 - 1925

This letter was written with ink on paper by Bernardus Johannes Blommers. Look at how the ink bleeds slightly into the page, and how the pressure of the pen varies, giving the lines a lively, almost dancing quality. It really brings home the sense of artmaking as a process. The letter is a direct, unfiltered expression of thought. It's physical; you can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page. The colour and texture of the paper, the slight imperfections, they all add to this sense of intimacy. Notice how the letters bunch together and then spread out, like thoughts forming and reforming in the artist's mind. The signature at the bottom, with its confident flourish, brings the piece together. This letter reminds me of Cy Twombly's scribbled paintings, where writing becomes drawing and drawing becomes writing, the meaning always just out of reach, embracing the ambiguity of art.