Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1914

This is Alphonse Stengelin’s letter to Philip Zilcken, penned in 1914. Look at that looping cursive, how it fills the page, dancing from top to bottom! I imagine Stengelin hunched over a desk, brow furrowed, the nib of his pen scratching and stuttering across the page. He’s writing fast but carefully, lost in thought, each word a brushstroke in a flurry of urgent communication. It's personal, sure, but also a bit performative. There’s a rhythm, a cadence, in the way he forms each letter, almost like he’s playing with the act of writing. He lays down some graphite on the side – almost like a doodle. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scrawls or even some of the automatic writing experiments by the Surrealists. Painters have always looked at the work of writers, and vice versa, inspiring and pushing each other. Maybe Stengelin wasn’t just writing a letter but creating his own unique brand of visual poetry. The real art lies in the playful, the unplanned, and the conversations we have with each other along the way.