As always, Bruce takes a paint kit and art supplies along on his travels.

As my wife Mimi and I visit seven museums in the Netherlands, we are reminded of the immense connections between our beloved Cincinnati Art Museum and its Dutch counterparts. Of course, we can’t possibly convey all these CAM-connect-the-dots in this brief blog post, en route; but here are just a few “oh, wow” moments of connection:

Van Gogh Museum.  All CAM fans know the dots connecting with the museum’s Undergrowth with Two Figures. VGM’s painting provides a nice art history link.

Museum Voorlinden.  A contemporary art museum located within fields and gardens. Think CAM’s Art Climb and gardens—museums that bring nature inside.

Royal Delft Museum.  World class ceramics. Watch it made. Think CAM’s Rookwood plus our contemporary ceramics collections.

Mauritshuis.  Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and surrounding Rembrandts resonate with CAM’s Gallery 206 (Dutch masters) and the Taft Museum’s Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair.

Rijksmuseum.  Brilliant blending of the old and new, the past and present. Think in terms of how the art speaks in its own visual way, work by work. The “isms” used to convey art history are not the same as the silent, visual, music-like speaking of the artwork itself.

National Maritime Museum.  Check out the history of the boat adventurers who sailed from the Netherlands to what we now call New York City.

Moco Museum.  CAM’s exciting upcoming All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins by Yayoi Kusama has a leg up on the current Kusama exhibition at Moco Amsterdam

Art from our world-class Cincinnati Art Museum connects to the world. When we visit CAM (for free) we connect to treasures beyond.

(On a personal note, our young grandsons are weaving in lots of World Cup with museum-dot-connecting.)