Brief aan Marisa Quanjer Possibly 1937

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst wrote this letter to Marisa Quanjer in 1937. It's a flurry of handwritten script on creamy paper, like a secret whispered across time. I can imagine Holst hunched over his desk, the pen dancing across the page. What was he thinking as he formed these words? Each stroke seems so deliberate, yet there's a wildness to the overall effect, a sense of urgency in the way the letters crowd together. It makes me think of Cy Twombly's scribbled paintings, where language becomes pure gesture, a kind of raw, unfiltered expression. The texture of the paper itself becomes part of the message. You can almost feel the weight of Holst's hand, the pressure he exerted as he poured out his thoughts. Writing becomes a form of embodied expression, a direct connection between mind and matter. Holst is in conversation with all the artists who came before him, all those who have used the written word as a means of exploring the depths of human experience.