Wikimedia Commons public domain
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Vincent Van Gogh
Wikimedia Commons public domain
We spent most of today (a portion of what one anonymous internet critic recently termed my “miserable life”) at the Van Gogh Museum, with a little bit of time thereafter to see some of the Rembrandts and Vermeers at the Rijksmuseum. We got around by boat on several of the city’s canals. Great fun. Miserable, of course. But, still, fascinating and enjoyable.
It’s a bit sad to think of the poverty and lack of success and appreciation that marked Van Gogh’s too-short life, and to compare that with the large museum dedicated to him today and the fame that has attached itself to his name, too late.
This may be a cliché, but I can’t close this post without a link to Don McLean’s “Starry, Starry Night”:
Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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