Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1927

This letter, penned in Marseille on April 28, 1924, is rendered with dark blue ink on thin paper. Look closely at the slant of the lettering, the elegant curls, and the way the letters crowd each other, all contributing to a feeling of urgency, of pouring out emotions onto the page. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s calligraphic scrawls that are like personal, intimate expressions, rather than formal pronouncements. The handwriting is legible but hurried, with words overlapping and lines blurring together. Each stroke seems to carry the weight of the writer’s immediate need, a need expressed in the words themselves – a desperate plea for assistance. The texture of the writing mirrors the emotional texture of the message. This letter, with its blend of vulnerability and directness, echoes the letters written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, both sharing the same quality of raw, unfiltered emotion. Both Van Gogh and Lipping use the medium of the letter as a space to articulate their struggles, blurring the line between personal correspondence and a form of artistic expression. Art, after all, is an ongoing conversation, a continuous exchange of ideas and feelings across time.