Brief aan Andries Bonger before 1929

This letter was composed by Emile Bernard in Paris on the 15 Quai Bourbon. Can you imagine him there, quill in hand, the ink bleeding slightly into the page? The act of writing itself is a form of mark-making, isn’t it? Bernard's looping script feels both urgent and intimate, like a sketch of his thoughts as they tumble out. He's writing to his friend Andries Bonger, expressing gratitude and longing for connection. I wonder about the weight of his hand as he presses down on the paper, the rhythm of his thoughts shaping the words. The letter becomes a kind of portrait – a trace of Bernard's presence, his desires, his very being. It is amazing how just a few strokes can reveal so much. And, like any good painting, it's full of gaps, silences, and spaces for us to fill in with our own imagination.