Brief aan Andries Bonger before 1893

Emile Bernard wrote this letter to Andries Bonger in 1893. The handwritten script itself becomes a series of symbols, each stroke imbued with the artist's emotions. Note the 'hieratisme graceux des palmes'. Palms appear often in art, representing victory, eternal life, and paradise, and originate in ancient near eastern religions. From antiquity to Christian art, they signify triumph and spiritual ascent, and the endurance of faith. This powerful symbol resonates across millennia. Consider the emotional undercurrent—the 'spleens inevitables'. It's a sense of melancholy and introspection that pervades the letter. This echoes the ‘acedia’ of medieval monks and the later Romantic concept of Weltschmerz. Such feelings, deeply embedded in our collective psyche, touch upon universal human experiences. In this letter, the palms, and the melancholy of the author interweave, underscoring how symbols evolve through cultural memory. They resurface, transformed by the passage of time and the weight of human emotion, adding layers of meaning to our understanding of the world.