Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1908 - 1909

This is a letter written by Eugène Demolder to Philip Zilcken in September 1908, using ink on paper. Look at that cursive, swooping like birds in flight! It’s as if Demolder is painting with his words. There's a kind of energy here that feels raw, immediate, a process of thinking made visible. The letter is translucent, you can see the ghost of the writing on the other side. The ink is deep and dark in some places, light and scratchy in others. Where the ink is lighter it's like he's barely touching the surface, like he’s afraid to make a mistake. I love the way that the marks are uneven, erratic. See how some of the letters bleed together, like he was writing quickly, urgently. It’s a beautiful mess. You can see echoes of writers like Baudelaire here, artists who are interested in capturing the messiness and the beauty of modern life. It’s a conversation across time, a dance between the visible and the invisible.