Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1900 - 1924

Curator: Before us we have "Brief aan Philip Zilcken," a letter by Jan Toorop, possibly written between 1900 and 1924. It’s housed here at the Rijksmuseum. What strikes you initially? Editor: The austerity of it, the directness. Thin strokes of dark ink on lined paper, almost like a musical score. The handwriting lends the whole piece a vulnerable quality; it's the bare minimum in materials for sharing a personal thought. Curator: Absolutely. Consider the tradition of letter-writing then, and even now. There’s a ritual of revealing, entrusting your thoughts to paper, to be physically transported to another person. And look at the controlled rhythm of Toorop's lines; calligraphy was often thought of as reflecting the writer’s spirit. Editor: I'm wondering about the quality of the paper itself. Was it commonplace, easily acquired? And the pen and ink – who produced them? These details shaped how readily ideas could be disseminated. The letter connects Toorop not only to Zilcken, but also to a whole system of production and delivery. Curator: Precisely. Zilcken himself was also an artist and a critic, deeply entrenched in the art world. So this is communication between peers, a moment of creative dialogue now frozen in time, but alive with unseen significance for each recipient across its history. I think its continued life within this museum only underscores its meaning. Editor: It's fascinating how the act of writing—the selection of materials, the physical labor—became imbued with Toorop's intent. You see this artifact now, a paper document; in its moment, it served a more active function, facilitating an art dialogue and contributing in its small way to artistic progress. Curator: I see it now as holding whispers and symbols of a unique personal intention now echoing through time. Editor: And a humble artifact speaks loudly about wider means of making, about sharing resources in a culture, about artistic influence.