Our critic’s highlights included spotlit Vermeer, mouse-fur beauty spots, Donatello saints, Alice Neel’s New Yorkers and the reopening of an underloved institution
July 2023
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming review – a visionary examination of Dutch golden age art
With time-stopping attention to detail, the Observer’s art critic searches for redemption in the rubble of the catastrophic Delft explosion of 1654 – to miraculous effect
June 2023
Brief letters
The delight of seeing a Vermeer at no cost
Brief letters: Kenwood House | 30-year mortgages | The Rejoin EU party | Tactical voting | Funeral songs
April 2023
Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition review – best seats in the house for sold-out show
How Vermeer made me a social success for the first time ever
Emma Beddington
March 2023
Vermeer’s luminous interiors gave us a new way into the inner worlds of others
Kenan Malik
His celebration of the mundane reflected the beginnings of a modern sensibility
February 2023
A world of wonders and catastrophes: discovering Vermeer and his hometown
Vermeer review – one of the most thrilling exhibitions ever conceived
Illuminating Johannes Vermeer’s use of the camera obscura
Much of a Dutchness: the world’s biggest ever Vermeer show is an unmissable feast
Vermeer will never look the same after Amsterdam exhibition
Jonathan Jones
‘Chance of a lifetime’ Vermeer exhibition to open in Amsterdam
January 2023
How restorations ruined Girl With a Flute
When is a Vermeer not a Vermeer? Reputations on the line over authenticity of artwork
December 2022
For Vermeer fanatics like me, 2023 will be a year when dreams come true
Simon Jenkins
An exhibition in Amsterdam will gather most of his masterpieces in one place – with a notable English exception, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
November 2022
Brief letters
Must we put up with this for Fawkes’ sake?
Brief letters: Harm caused by fireworks | Pub pedantry | Evade the Question Time | Art over artist | The joy of eggs
Protesters who targeted Girl with a Pearl Earring jailed by Dutch court
Two activists from Just Stop Oil Belgium each sentenced to two months in prison with one month suspended
Museums spar over authenticity of painting ahead of major Vermeer show
Rijksmuseum to display Girl With a Flute at exhibition despite National Gallery of Art, Washington, saying it is an imitation
October 2022
Just Stop Oil activist tries to glue own head to Girl with a Pearl Earring
Protester at The Hague’s Mauritshuis says Vermeer painting protected and fine unlike ‘future of our children’
December 2021
Museum rivalry ‘could make Dutch Vermeer show last of its kind’
Rijksmuseum aims to bring together all the works by Girl with a Pearl Earring painter that are fit to travel
