Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1905 - 1920

This letter was written by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot in The Hague, on November 20th. You can see the ink almost bleeding into the page, the way the characters vary, some dark, some so light they’re barely there. It’s like the words are breathing on the page, a real living thing, not just information. There’s a particular loop in the middle of the first line of the letter, a real flourish, you can see how the pen must have been held, and the pressure that was applied to create that line, like a fingerprint, capturing a moment in time. It reminds me of the work of Cy Twombly, the way the line itself seems to be as important as the words that make it up. Both are artists who understood artmaking as a process, where you’re not just representing an idea but tracing the movements of your body, and the journey of your mind in real time. It’s not about perfect execution, it’s about capturing the messy, beautiful energy of creation.