Brief aan Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller c. 1926

This is a letter, seemingly from 1923, by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst to Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller. The ink is applied in a quick, flowing hand, almost like sketching with words, which gives it a real sense of immediacy. For me, art is always a process, a conversation, and this feels like a very intimate part of that exchange. The paper itself is thin, and you can see the ink bleeding slightly, especially in the denser areas of the script. It's interesting how the pressure varies in the writing, darker where the pen lingered, lighter where it sped along. It's as if the handwriting itself is performing the emotion. If you look closely at the way he forms his letters, they're not overly precise, more about capturing a feeling than perfect legibility. I see a bit of Van Gogh in that expressiveness, that rawness of feeling laid bare. It reminds me that art doesn't need to be polished to be powerful.