Visitekaartje aan Philip Zilcken before 1911

Here we see Hendrikus Hubertus van Kol’s calling card to Philip Zilcken, most likely made with ink on card. I imagine Van Kol holding a dip pen, carefully applying ink to paper. It looks like the card already had the formal details printed, but he added a personal note at the top, something quick and intimate, to make the recipient feel recognized and seen. Van Kol was a politician as well as an artist, so these cards would have been part of his practice. When I look at the penmanship, I see a relationship to drawing, the elegant loops and cursive strokes similar to the drawn line, a way of thinking through the body and hand. You can sense his personality through the slant of the script, the pressure he applied, and the rhythm of the handwriting. The note is an intimate gesture, a quiet exchange between artists and friends. I think of other artists who've used the written word in their work, like Cy Twombly, and how each is trying to capture something about the fleeting, ephemeral quality of language and human connection.