Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1904 - 1906

This letter to Jan Veth was written in Baarn, in 1904, by Karel Johan Lodewijk Alberdingk Thijm. Look how the ink bleeds into the fibrous paper, the letters pushing into the page with an urgency that reminds me of my own process of painting. When I zoom in, I can see the way the pen hesitates and restarts, each character a tiny dance of intention and accident, like a brushstroke finding its way across the canvas. The elegant script leans and curves, with a rhythm that feels both practiced and spontaneous, echoing the way I build up layers of colour and form in my paintings, letting each mark respond to the ones that came before. Thinking about this letter reminds me of Cy Twombly's scribbled paintings, where language and gesture blur together, where the act of writing becomes a kind of drawing. Just like Twombly, Alberdingk Thijm shows us how art is a conversation, a process of thinking and feeling that unfolds over time, and in this case, on paper.