Brief aan Jan Veth 1878 - 1925

This letter to Jan Veth was written by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst, probably sometime in the 1890s. It’s a personal note, handwritten in Dutch, all looping lines made with dark ink on a pale, fibrous page. The artist’s hand moves quickly, the words jostling each other. I can see the nib pressing into the paper, releasing more ink in some places, less in others. I wonder what Roland Holst was thinking as he wrote. Was he pausing, mid-sentence, considering the best way to express his thoughts? The slant of the writing suggests a mind in motion, caught up in the flow. The letter reminds me of my own process as a painter, where the act of creation is a conversation between thought and action. Each stroke informs the next, the composition evolving through layers of marks and erasures. The act of writing, like painting, is a process of discovery, where the artist is always learning, always responding to the evolving work.