Briefkaart aan Andries Bonger before 1916

This postcard to Andries Bonger is by Émile Bernard, in ink, with a great sense of urgency. You can tell a lot about a person from their handwriting, can't you? The marks are all very close together, packed and dense, like he had so much to say. There’s a real physical sense of Bernard pressing down hard on the page with the nib of his pen. I love how the ink bleeds slightly into the paper, adding to that feeling of density and urgency. Look at the way he loops his letters, how certain words are almost illegible. It’s so immediate and personal. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, another artist who used writing and mark-making in a way that feels both intimate and grand. There’s a beautiful tension in art between control and chance, and between legibility and abstraction.