Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1917

This letter was written in Amsterdam on the 9th of December 1917 by someone at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Look at the looping forms of the handwriting, so full of energy and intention. You can see the pressure of the nib on the page. How did the writer hold their pen, what kind of relationship did they have to the page? I wonder if the pen felt scratchy against the paper or if it glided effortlessly. I think of the artist Cy Twombly and his calligraphic style. Here, the physical act of writing becomes a dance, a performance of ideas. Each stroke is a decision, a thought made visible. The letters rise and fall like the intonations of the voice. You can sense the author's presence, their personality embedded in the rhythm of the script. Artists are always in conversation with one another, even across time. What seems like a simple letter becomes a form of embodied expression, echoing the same concerns and impulses that drive us to create paintings. A gesture of the hand, a mark on the page, a way of making our mark on the world.