View of the courtyard and famous triangle from inside.

The indoor sculpture garden seen from inside.

 Hard to see, but there’s a woman dressed all in white as a sculpture with a group of schoolchildren, showing them how the movement of the sculpture works.

The Louvre’s two Vermeers, all alone. So humble, so magnificent – private and solitary, dignified and silent. Made me, of course, cry. This time I saw the piece of crumpled paper on the scholar’s desk, the glint of his fingernail, the delicacy of the lacemaker’s wrist. Concentration and stillness – and weird hair. That’s my beloved Vermeer.

I always like the paintings of people reading and writing. This is Erasmus by Holbein (and in shadow on the glass, another writer.)

Art aficionados.

And these.

Rembrandt and the people he painted look at us with infinite depth and sadness. I think of him as a fellow autobiographer – he painted his own face over and over, and through his face we see mankind. As we memoir writers try to capture ourselves, and what it is to be alive, with words.

A miscellaneous staircase.

Poor gorgeous naked Venus, surrounded. An American girl beside me said, “She’s not very feminine. Look at her waistline!” Always with the critics.

 A miscellaneous ceiling.

The Mona Lisa.