Brief aan Philip Zilcken 1873 - 1930

This is a letter to Philip Zilcken by Jules Destrée. I always look at handwriting like it’s a drawing—maybe because the words become almost illegible to me. I think of the writer’s hand moving across the page, the pressure of the pen creating these marks. Look closely and you’ll see the delicate fading of the ink, the way the lines trail off. I wonder what Destrée was thinking as he wrote. Was he in a hurry? Was he carefully considering each word? You know, it is so intimate, isn't it? Handwriting! It reveals so much about a person’s state of mind. What was he trying to communicate? And how did Zilcken respond? These letters, like paintings, are a form of conversation across time. I imagine Destrée and Zilcken sharing ideas, inspiring each other, maybe even disagreeing. Each stroke of the pen holds a story, waiting for us to interpret and reimagine it.