Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1906 - 1912

Chap van Deventer wrote ‘Brief aan Jan Veth’ sometime around 1906; he used black ink and a fine nib on paper with a faint grid. You can imagine him hunched over his desk, carefully composing each word, and then scratching it out, and then adding it again. I really feel for him here – I can see him wrestling with his thoughts. The ink is pooling and spreading, like he’s gone over certain words again and again. He’s trying to articulate an idea, make a point, maybe even persuade someone of something. Artists are always doing that, aren’t they? We’re constantly trying to capture these fleeting, elusive things in our heads and put them out into the world. We fail all the time but that’s when the good stuff emerges. It’s in the trying, in the struggle. Van Deventer’s letter feels like that—the physical evidence of a mind at work. And in a way, it reminds me of my own studio practice. I see painting as a kind of conversation. We’re all talking to each other, across time and space, riffing on each other’s ideas and techniques.