Culture Shock

Since the Trumpster and his head-tribble don't believe in history and don't know what art is, one or two difficulties are understandably emerging as regards collaboration between art historians inside and outside the Land of the Free. At least one Dutch museum is debating whether to lend items to its US counterparts in the face of funding cuts and the Trumpster administration's ongoing purge of all that is improper, divisive or ideologically anti-American. Works held at the Mauritshuis include Vermeer's improper Girl with a Pearl Earring, in which the bling on display is notoriously austere; as well as Rembrandt's un-American Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, which depicts an image of the one true God being dissected in the name not only of science, but of education as well. Yet more ominously, the museum is located at the Hague, where non-white war criminals occasionally get their come-uppance; and although there is as yet no record of an orange felon being put on trial there, it would hardly be surprising if the head-tribble found caution advisable.