Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1920 - 1927

This letter to Philip Zilcken was written in Paris, in 1920, by Elissa Rhaïs. It's funny, the deep violet ink almost seems to float on the surface of the page. Look at the way Rhaïs forms each letter, the loops and elegant lines, it's as if writing itself is a dance, a process. I love that you can see the hand so clearly here. The ink is thin in some places and darker in others, reflecting the pressure of her hand as she moves across the page, each word a kind of topography. There's a rhythm here, a kind of pulsing energy. The way she crosses the ‘t’s', almost like daggers, adds another layer of emotion, maybe a hidden strength or a subtle rebellion. It reminds me a little of Cy Twombly's scrawled lines or even the automatic writing of the Surrealists – a way of bypassing conscious thought and letting something more primal take over. Art is just a conversation, really, across time and space.