Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1901 - 1914

This is a letter, made in 1901 in Amsterdam, from Jan van Oort to Philip Zilcken. It’s written in Dutch, so I can’t read it, but it’s pretty gorgeous just as a set of marks. Look at how the ink sits on the page, not quite soaking in, but not quite floating on top either. It’s got a kind of hesitant quality, like the writer is feeling his way through each word. There’s a rhythm to the loops and lines that feels both intimate and formal. I love the way the script varies; sometimes it’s dense and compact, then suddenly it opens up with these expansive, looping flourishes. The signature, “Jan van Oort,” is the most playful mark of all. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, who also used writing as a jumping off point for abstraction. It’s like Van Oort is using the act of writing to explore the space of the page, and in doing so, turning the letter into a drawing.