Brief aan Fritz Mannheimer Possibly 1924 - 1925

This is a letter written by Jan Veth in 1924, penned with what looks like dark ink on paper, a real artifact from the past. I can imagine Veth hunched over his desk, the nib of his pen scratching across the page, each stroke a deliberate act of communication, but also, you know, of creation. What's so interesting about letters is how they straddle that line between functional and artistic, right? The ink is pooling in places, creating these darker, denser moments amidst the thinner lines, almost like a landscape when the light is fading, or when you can see the weather passing across the horizon, the weight of his thoughts pressing down, leaving a physical mark. I wonder what he was thinking about when he made those crossings out? Was he unsure of what he wanted to say? Or was he carefully editing himself to express something with more nuance? It’s easy to imagine the dialogue between artists from one generation to the next and how we get to refine our thinking. It's an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas. It’s an exchange that reminds us that ambiguity is OK.