In the city of Amsterdam, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) continues to reign as its artistic sovereign. Many of his masterpieces hold court at the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch State Museum that contains the world’s largest collection of Rembrandt paintings, offering a characteristic and wide-ranging overview of his works. The city is also home to the Rembrandt…

NR | 1h 18min | Documentary, History, Art | 26 May 2023 (Netherlands) Other than possibly Rembrandt, none of the painters to produce art during the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age is as well-respected and revered by experts and collectors as Johannes Vermeer. Depending on the source, Vermeer created just 40 works between 1654 and 1670. Of those, six are presumed lost…

Vermeer hysteria has been stoked by the current blockbuster exhibition “Vermeer” on view at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, until June 4, 2023. This show is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition showcasing the majority of the artist’s oeuvre. The show, which is the first Vermeer exhibition ever held at the Rijksmuseum, congregates an astonishing 28 of the Baroque painter’s…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands—Two Belgian activists who targeted Johannes Vermeer’s iconic “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting in a climate protest last week were sentenced Wednesday to two months in prison, with prosecutors saying their action “crossed a line” of acceptable protest. Half of the sentence was suspended by a judge in The Hague, meaning the…

As human beings, our capacity for making judgments seems to be innate. We judge what we like, what we don’t like, what’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly, and what’s beautiful. Arguably, our judgments determine how our lives unfold, for we won’t adopt the beliefs that guide our lives without first judging them to be true….

With much of Europe gradually opening up after months of varying levels of lockdown, many of us may not be comfortable traveling across the Atlantic just yet. It’s not the same, but in these unprecedented times, we can take solace in online art offerings. One great choice for seeing a world-renowned European collection is at…