Brief aan Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller Possibly 1926

Curator: Here we have "Brief aan Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller" – that’s "Letter to Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller"–possibly from 1926, by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst, currently held in the Rijksmuseum collection. It's ink on paper. The handwriting is a beautiful testament to the calligraphic hand. Editor: The intimacy just leaps out—seeing someone's actual handwriting always feels like peering directly into their thoughts. There’s something deeply personal and also fragile in the strokes and the ink on simple paper. What really resonates is the imperfection – the slight unevenness that speaks volumes. Curator: Exactly! It almost becomes a self-portrait of the artist through script. Holst's background heavily involved decorative arts and social critique and these combined interests become uniquely fused here, don't you think? Editor: Yes, his artistic journey and engagement with societal discourse are mirrored in this unassuming note. Thinking of it as ink applied laboriously… by hand… connects you so closely to its very construction and its message to a fellow intellectual. Curator: The handwritten note allows for subtle inflections, a quickness of thought you lose when composing through a machine or printer. These are two intellectual companions, bound by a love of letters. I sense an implicit connection to design principles. The placement and arrangement evoke visual rhythms too. Editor: This "Brief" shows the importance of what something is made from to fully grasp it—from the very physical act of drawing to the type of ink or paper employed by the author to realize their thought. Curator: It makes you wonder about their relationship, the nature of their bond revealed only through this intimate form of communication. Thanks to its simple means, and its elegant materiality, we have direct, physical proof of two lives, minds connecting in time. Editor: I agree! Considering all of this truly invites an enriching reading and deep appreciation of not only a beautiful specimen, but of a past and tangible, social link.