We hope you liked the free gift in our April issue, an Old Master for every reader. Vermeer’s The Milk Maid hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and is one of the museum’s biggest attractions.
In these strange times, however, when we can’t just hop on a plane or train, art has so much to offer us from our own homes. In our April issue, art historian Susie Hodge, author of The Art Puzzle Book (White Lion) talks us through appreciating art slowly. We hope you’ll find ten minutes to spend with your own personal Vermeer at some point, getting to know it better before you hang it on a wall or perch it on a mantel somewhere.
And if you’re inspired to spend more time with art from home, you might like to visit a Vermeer virtually, or an O’Keefe online, or perhaps even a Van Gogh on Google.
You can visit the Rijksmuseum online where you can choose to explore particular artists, or browse by category, from still lifes and portraits to biblical scenes and landscapes, getting up close enough to see every brushstroke. Don’t forget to drop in on The Milkmaid.
Fancy a meander among the Monets? Pop down to the Musee d’Orsay and have a virtual wander through this beautiful building on the banks of the Seine, in the former Orsay Railway Station.
Or, if you like a more hi-tech approach, nip into the Met in New York, and try out the Met 360 Project, a series of six videos filmed to allow you to view it in 360 degrees. If you view it on your phone you can simply raise your phone to look up to the ceiling or drop it downwards to see what’s beneath you. You can stand in the galleries alone for an ‘after hours’ view or soar above the gallery’s cloisters for a bird’s eye view.
Sometimes you just need to look at something from a different perspective.
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