Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1921

This is Willem Witsen's letter to Jan Veth, written with ink on paper in 1921. I imagine him, pen in hand, leaning over the paper, his brow furrowed in concentration. The ink bleeds slightly into the page, a testament to the absorbency of the material. He is concerned about his work, about the light, about what to tell his friend. Look at the slant of his handwriting, the way the letters dance across the page, like notes in a musical score. It's a deeply personal and intimate form of expression, each stroke revealing something of his inner thoughts and feelings. You can see that there is both control and spontaneity at play. It makes me think about the act of writing as a form of mark-making, a kind of drawing with words. It's like he's sketching out his thoughts, capturing a fleeting moment in time. He reminds me of other painters who write, and writers who paint. How do these things combine?