Plaat met namen van voormalige predikanten uit Batenburg before 1908

This is 'Plaat met namen van voormalige predikanten uit Batenburg' by Benjamin Charlé, made in the late 19th or early 20th century. The page on the right is a carefully printed list of names, like an official record. But then you glance over to the left page, and it's filled with this looping, cursive script. It's like the artist couldn't resist adding a handwritten layer, smudging the neatness with something personal. The way the ink bleeds slightly into the paper, there's a real feeling of immediacy and intimacy. That contrast gets me thinking about how we make art to record, to remember, to leave a trace of ourselves. Look at how the loops of the handwriting almost dance across the page. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scrawls, but with a very different kind of energy. While Twombly is all big gestures, this feels more like a quiet, persistent act of remembering. Art is a constant conversation across time, where each artist reinterprets and answers those who came before.