Briefkaart aan Willem Bogtman Possibly 1926 - 1929

This postcard was probably made with ink on paper by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst sometime in the early 20th century. The artist's hand moves across the page in cursive, a dance of language and form. It’s amazing that the act of writing can be artmaking, a process of layering meaning and experience. Look closely, and you'll notice the texture of the paper, how the ink pools and thins in places. The darks and lights of the marks create a rhythm, a kind of visual music. See how the address is written in a more formal hand? It feels like the artist is switching between selves, a public persona and a private one. The stamp and postmark add another layer, a sense of time and place. Holst was part of the Symbolist movement, a time when artists were deeply engaged with mystical and spiritual ideas, and I see this here. Think about Hilma af Klint, another artist who explored the unseen through abstraction. Ultimately, art invites us to embrace ambiguity, to find our own meanings in the dance of marks and gestures.