Brief aan Andries Bonger 1878 - 1936

This letter by Emile Bernard is like a drawing made with words, a kind of raw, unfiltered thought process laid bare. The script sprawls across the page, a relentless outpouring of ink. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, that beautiful scribbling, that madman mark-making, but here, the marks make words, and the words make a meaning, or try to. Look at the way he loops his letters, the pressure he applies, how some words are darker, bolder, as if he's suddenly hit upon an idea he needs to get down fast. There's an urgency to it, a sense of the artist wrestling with his thoughts, letting them spill out in a torrent of handwritten prose. It’s like seeing the gears turning in his mind, the raw material of thought before it's been refined or polished. It shows how art, in any form, is just a conversation, a way of thinking out loud with a pen, a brush, or whatever's at hand.