Brief aan Henriette Wilhelmina van Baak Possibly 1930

This is a letter in Dutch, from 1930, by Henriette Marie Gobée. Look at the script, the way the ink sits on the page. I love the casual loops and swoops of the handwriting, it’s so open and earnest. The letter is light and dark, of course. You can feel the scratch of the nib on the paper, each stroke deliberate yet free. Look at the top right hand corner, where the ink is darker and denser – you can imagine the weight of the writer’s hand there, pushing down, almost like she’s digging into the page to find the right words. You can really tell how the writer felt through the pressure she puts on the pen. It reminds me a little of Cy Twombly’s scrawls, the way he made language into something visual and felt. It’s an enduring conversation, this making of marks, a reminder that art is always about connection, about reaching out across time and space.