Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1912

This letter, "Brief aan Philip Zilcken," was written in Lausanne in 1912 by M. Secretan. You can almost feel the pressure of the pen on the page, each stroke a little dance of thought. The ink, a kind of deep blue, flows and pools in little puddles. I wonder what Secretan was thinking about while writing. The words are personal, a little apology, a little gratitude. I imagine them sitting in their studio, maybe surrounded by paintings, the air thick with the smell of oil paint and turpentine. This letter reminds me of Cy Twombly's scribbled canvases, each mark filled with emotion. Artists leave a piece of themselves in every stroke, and we, as viewers, get to piece together the story. Painting is like a conversation across time. We're all just picking up where someone else left off, adding our own voices to the mix. We're all trying to figure something out, and that's the beauty of it.