Brief aan Jan Veth 1875 - 1925

Editor: Here we have "Brief aan Jan Veth" by Isaac Israels, made sometime between 1875 and 1925. It's a drawing created with pen and ink on paper. It has this really intimate feel, like peeking into a personal moment. I'm curious, what captures your attention when you look at this piece? Curator: Well, first off, let's not get caught up on assuming a medium IS its subject... Look closer, friend. Is it not an ephemeral trace on the human experience, scrawled into something both intimate and immediate? And those haphazard strokes... they whisper a narrative, dont they? What story does it tell you? Editor: I guess I hadn't thought about it like that! To me it was mostly something very practical – correspondence. Curator: Right, it SEEMS practical, it is what meets the eye. But I find it so incredibly...raw. We’re catching a glimpse, aren’t we, of the artist’s very soul, splayed across this humble parchment? Look at that urgency; it’s practically pulsating! It's as if he has transferred his emotional state directly onto the page, with no filters, you know? And the best works do that. Editor: That's beautiful. I'll definitely try to remember to think about the raw emotion an art piece transmits, instead of just describing what it looks like, next time! Curator: Splendid, truly splendid.