Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

This afternoon I just finished a print which I started Monday. We got a revolving door here in the post office [in the city Groningen] and that's such a nice thing to use.

the art-critic has provided the products of my lab with a (new) label: 'abracadabra'.. ..[but] one can not speak about abracadabra-ism, and that is its advantage on all –isms: it doesn't know time and limits and especially not the 'periods of time' [but] only seasons.. ..all -isms are dead, blown away, sprayed in the air, gone (here imagery does not fit, imagery is always wrong) - only for the 'abracadabra' is the future wall, the coming wall in the next house - how much the 'peinture' of other fabrics is curving and folding itself, polished or blown-up, it's all for nothing.. .We are not addressing those offspring but only the artists in this world..

I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.. ..it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion.

Moreover the book 'The Legend of Baal Shem', by Martin Buber gives beautiful images. I have read some chapters from it and the 'Werewolf' among others, has been written very beautifully.

one print gets born from the other one, and that is exactly the right thing of it - it keeps the mind ready.

The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800).. .Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original.. .As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say..
..Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind.

..not the familiar paradise, but the unknown - somewhere in a continent that hasn’t been discovered yet by anyone from the civilized countries - I have escaped [in his prints!] because it is almost unbearable to be in our world.

GRONINGEN, BERLIN, MOSCOW, PARIS 1923
Start of the violet season
Reader
As we are convinced that it is not too LATE, we will speak.
Time is running, honestly.. ..it has become necessary now to do something, before it is too late
There must be witnessing and speaking..
..Art is everywhere. She is thrown us people on our jackets by the birds. In every infant with weak intestines, the latent seed is laid for an artist..
Our first publication will soon be published. We urgently invite you to become a fellow reader [of the upcoming art-magazine 'The Next Call'].. .. We count on your DEEDS in the white season with the black shadows..

hobade he - hobade há, habone de - habone da, tomate pe - tomate pa, coquille ki - coquille ku, trankielje ti - trankielje tu, bombade bè - bombade ba, salate te - salate ta, horbide de - horbide da, sperate ke - sperate ká, hosade de - hosade da, ad fundum hà – ad fundum ho, ho ho ho ho – ha ha ha ha, (dacapo po)

..When I have made some drawings I see them immediately in front of my eyes, enlarged [and] in colors..

At a given moment there comes a time that you kick off everything, the whole mess and relieved you are walking further the path. Then the temptations come: Shouldn't I do this in another way, shall I go back and start to accept that I am a fool. Then bite your teeth firmly and say to yourself: no, stupid fool, don't go back, because what you will lose is profit.

There the telephone is ringing again - the engine, the machines [of the printing company] that call you with their sounds - those people who honor and tease [you] with their orders and admonitions - the chiefs who ask - the bills that have to be paid - the interest that force you to work.

Last week we made a bike ride along cornfields with the harvest ready to be brought in. Here and there it was already brought in. Heavily loaded cars rolled back home, and it sounds so nice when the car comes after you.. ..and what a fruit tree loaded with ripening fruit. It is all full of promises and full of mild softness. As you say, it is the late-summer melancholy.. ..moreover one can weep for this dying everywhere on the fields, without any mercy.

I will keep for you the small drawings that I usually make beforehand. They don't have any artistic value. I just make them to have some grip for the composition of the print..

As paint I use lightfast printing ink, usually pure, but also mixed. Mixing is not difficult at all, it but can happen in very different ways. Secret means are not applied, but I can not work on them, except in solitude (at sunshine). No one works in this way. I believe that no one else can obtain the same color effects, except after a lot of practice and experience. Sometimes one print goes up to 50 times under the printing-press. [I make] Never more than one piece per day.