Brief aan Felix Stone Moscheles before 1916

This is a letter by Matthijs Maris, writing with ink on paper. He probably did this to communicate with Felix Stone Moscheles. The handwriting is so personal, like a drawing itself. Look at the loops of the ‘l’s and the way the words huddle together, almost touching. It’s as if the ink is trying to keep the words warm. The letter dives straight into the deep end with a weary, weary world, and then it's off to the races! The texture of the paper, you can almost feel it, right? And the way the ink bleeds a little, like tears on the page, creating these soft blurred edges. Like memory itself. It’s the kind of thing you see in outsider art too, this raw, unfiltered expression. Like James Ensor, all those masks and hidden meanings, a similar way of wrestling with the world. Art, like a good letter, it’s never just one thing. It’s a conversation, a question, a possibility.