A friend told me he found it very convenient to see all the famous stuff in the Rijksmuseum together. I’ve found myself that one sees paintings better if one comes back again and again to look at them. In fact only when I had made several visits in a short time to the Mauritshuis (where they have the largest collection of Vermeers in The Netherlands I think) did I begin reading on Vermeer. I suppose I should visit the museum again now and put my new convictions, if that’s what they are, to the test. Incidentally, I came across a German book on Vermeer and Spinoza recently, which unfortunately says very little on Vermeer but which still seems interesting..

I did have a good look round what used to be Jewish Amsterdam, visiting the Hollandse Schouwburg and the Jewish Historical Museum (where they had a very funny exhibit about Rembrandt and the Jews, as well as a first edition of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, yum yum). And I finished up with a short trip to the Rijksmuseum, though since that’s mostly closed for renovations (or something) I only saw the really famous stuff they still have on display, which I pretty much knew about or had seen before anyway.

I quite liked the Henry Moore exhibit that’s going on in Rotterdam, with animatronic dinosaurs on the floor below in the art museum there.

And I was away for much of the Winterval, and don’t have any festive cat pictures.

Although I did take a picture of a very fine cat named Cecil in Palo Alto, and then emailed it (the picture, not the cat) to a complete stranger who happened to have the same name as Cecil’s owner, so that’ll be a nice surprise for her.