Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1904 - 1918

This letter to Philip Zilcken was written by Marie Metz-Koning in 1908 with ink on paper. When I look at the handwriting, I think about its relationship to drawing. Each letter is carefully formed, as if the artist is attending to each small gesture. It’s a beautiful script, controlled and elegant. But you can also see the tremor in her hand. I think about how this letter is a kind of portrait of the artist herself, of her personality, her education, her time. I can imagine her at her desk, carefully choosing the words. I wonder what she wanted to say to Zilcken. It's hard to know what she was thinking, or how she felt when she wrote it, but somehow the energy of the letter gives us a clue. Artists are always looking at and responding to each other. This letter has something in common with painting. It’s about touch, about the human hand, and about how we communicate feeling.