Brief aan Jenneke 't Hart-Heyner 1918

This letter was written by Philip Zilcken, around 1918. The handwriting gives the impression of a kind of urgency, the letters closely packed together like a flock of birds. The blue ink against the creamy paper makes me think of a stormy sea. The material presence of the letter, the physical act of writing, it's all right there on the surface. You can almost feel the writer's hand moving across the page. Notice the slant of the words, the way some lines dive down while others arch upwards. The capital letters have these emphatic downstrokes like a conductor’s baton, lending a rhythm to the text. Zilcken uses these gestures to convey the emotional weight of the message, the urgency of his feelings. It puts me in mind of Cy Twombly's scrawled paintings, where writing becomes a form of abstract expression. It’s all about the energy, the raw, unfiltered emotion coming through. Isn’t it funny how a simple letter can become a mirror reflecting our own emotional landscape?