Brief aan jonkheer Hendrik Teding van Berkhout (1879-1969) Possibly 1932

This letter was written in 1932, by Harrie Kuyten, in Amsterdam. It’s a really gorgeous example of handwriting as a form of drawing, something I’ve always been fascinated by. Look at the loops and swirls, the way the ink pools in certain spots, how the pressure changes with each stroke. There’s a real rhythm to it, a kind of dance. You can feel the hand moving across the page, almost like watching a performance. The words themselves, the message, almost become secondary to the sheer visual pleasure of the marks. It reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly, actually, the way he’d scribble and scrawl, turning language into pure gesture. Both artists seem to be interested in the process of making marks, the physicality of writing, more than any fixed or definitive meaning. And that, to me, is what makes art so endlessly fascinating.