Museum stories
A tronie with a pearl, not a passport
She looks round. The pearl catches the light. A face on canvas need promise no more than that.
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Museum stories
The Night Watch is a daytime duty in motion
The name promises night. On the canvas, a captain gives the signal to set off. The light does the rest.
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Van Gogh
The Bedroom: three planes that have to become a room
Two chairs, a bed, a window. And yet it is no tidy floor plan. It is a room that comes forward.
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Van Gogh
What he took from Japanese prints differs from sheet to sheet
He cut prints out, copied them and hung them up. One sheet is a flat branch, another a bridge that really does have depth.
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Van Gogh
Behind the sower, ripe corn still stands
In Otterlo a man scatters seed over ploughed land, while behind him the harvest is still standing.
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Van Gogh
When the red drops out of the mix
Purple was red plus blue. When the red disappears, what remains is a different colour from the one he mixed.
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