Brief aan Pieter Haverkorn van Rijsewijk Possibly 1904 - 1925

This letter by Bernardus Johannes Blommers, made with pen on paper, has a quality of the everyday about it. It is an artwork, though the artist surely would have considered it a letter. I imagine him hunched over a desk, pen in hand, deep in thought. Each stroke carefully considered, each word a deliberate act of communication. I wonder what he might have been thinking, and if he knew it would one day be in a museum. The ink is finely wrought, creating a dance of light and shadow on the page, and the way the letters swell and diminish reminds me of Cy Twombly. The energy and the hand of the artist feels so present. Artists are always in conversation with each other, across time and space, building on the ideas and techniques of those who came before. So much freedom comes from such constraints!