Lien neemt afscheid van een man op een perron before 1957

Editor: So, this is "Lien neemt afscheid van een man op een perron," a drawing by Hans Borrebach made before 1957. It depicts a couple saying goodbye at what looks like a train station. The monochrome, primarily blue, gives it a wistful, almost melancholic feel, don't you think? What do you see in it? Curator: Oh, melancholic is spot on! I see echoes of a thousand tearful goodbyes, all rolled into one deceptively simple drawing. It’s a genre scene, yes, but there's also something intensely personal about it, like catching a stolen moment. You notice how the figures are positioned? He's bathed in light, confident. She, with her back to us, is all uncertainty, swallowed up by the shadow of that doorway, poised between here and… where, exactly? Perhaps she wonders if he *will* write as often, a universal concern in any relationship separated by distance. Look up top, it looks like a quote written on the original paper from this 'Lien': *'Will you write again as badly as last time?'* This isn’t just a goodbye, it’s a narrative fragment! Editor: Oh wow, I totally missed the script! So it's almost like a comic book frame? Curator: Precisely! The artist captures a specific moment of the conversation. The style itself hints at a newspaper comic, a very modern form for the time, full of implied movement and unspoken tension. It’s not polished; you can almost feel the artist sketching quickly, trying to catch the fleeting emotion before it disappears. I almost wonder if Borrebach meant it for a personal sketchbook, maybe developing these characters. It *feels* that intimate. It pulls on all of us, doesn't it? Editor: Absolutely. It is strangely intimate and vulnerable. It's incredible how much story you can pack into one simple drawing. Thank you! Curator: My pleasure. We both just discovered a tiny moment suspended in ink, ready to play out its silent drama for anyone willing to pause and look.