Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1910 - 1919

This letter was written in 1910 by Hendrikus Hubertus van Kol. You can see how the ink bleeds into the fibers of the page. It’s a very intimate thing, handwriting. Van Kol’s looping script dances across the page. I can almost feel the nib of his pen scratching as he forms each letter. He's writing to Philip Zilcken, and the handwriting, the words, become a kind of a performance, an offering of sorts. The words have a rhythm, a cadence that feels almost like a drawing in itself. And there is such elegance in the way he phrases his sentences, and the way his words express his thoughts. It makes me think about the writers I admire, like Anne Carson, who also brings that kind of art to language. It’s a reminder that even in something as everyday as a letter, we can find beauty and expression, an echo of the artist’s soul. Artists are constantly looking to the past, building on what came before, and adding to that conversation.