1. I think very well of him indeed

    When I was still doubtful as to his ability, I asked G.E. Moore for his opinion. Moore replied, ‘I think very well of him indeed.’ When I enquired the reason for his opinion, he said that it was because Wittgenstein was the only man who looked puzzled at his lectures. — Bertrand Russell

  2. A perfect circle

    Once, being asked to submit a sample of his work, what Giotto submitted was a circle.
    Well, the point being that it was a perfect circle.
    And that Giotto had painted it freehand.

  3. The Eiffel Tower

    When the sun had gotten to the angle from which Phidias had taken his perspective, the Parthenon almost seemed to glow.
    Actually, the best time to see that is generally also at four o’clock.
    Doubtless the taverns from which one could see that did better business than the taverns from which one could not, in fact, even though they were all in the same street.
    Unless of course the latter were patronized by people who had lived in Athens long enough to have gotten tired of seeing it.
    Such things can happen. As in the case of Guy de Maupassant, who ate his lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower.
    Well, the point being that this was the only place in Paris from which he did not have to look at it.

  4. Ceci n'est pas une pipe

    There is nobody at the window in the painting of the house, by the way.
    I have now concluded that what I believed to be a person is a shadow.
    If it is not a shadow, it is perhaps a curtain.
    As a matter of fact it could actually be nothing more than an attempt to imply depths, within the room.
    Although in a manner of speaking all that is really in the window is burnt sienna pigment. And some yellow ochre.
    In fact there is no window either, in that same manner of speaking, but only shape.
    So that any few speculations I have made about the person at the window would therefore now appear to be rendered meaningless, obviously.
    Unless of course I subsequently become convinced that there is somebody at the window all over again.
    I have put that badly.

  5. Erased de Kooning Drawing

    Erased de Kooning Drawing

    Once, Robert Rauschenberg erased most of a drawing by Willem de Kooning, and then named it Erased de Kooning Drawing.

    I am in no way certain what this is connected to either, but I suspect it is connected to more than I once believed it to be connected to.

  6. The cat

    The cat I began to think about instead was the cat outside of the broken window in the room next to this one, at which the tape frequently scratches when there is a breeze.
    Which is to say that I was not actually thinking about a cat either, there being no cat except insofar as the sound of the scratching reminds me of one.

    As there was, or is, no person at the window in the painting of this house.

  7. It is still a house

    Perhaps even the very house which I burned to the ground contained such examples, even though it would obviously not contain them any longer, no longer being a house.
    Well, it is still a house.
    Even if there is not remarkably much left of it, I am still prone to think of it as a house when I pass it in taking my walks.
    There is the house I burned to the ground, I might think. Or, soon I will be coming to the house that I burned to the ground.

  8. The image of reality

    Leonardo wrote in his notebooks backwards, from right to left, so that they had to be held up to a mirror to be read.
    In a manner of speaking, the image of Leonardo’s notebooks would be more real than the notebooks themselves.

  9. Equidistance

    Once, in the Rijksmuseum, I brought in new speakers for my phonograph. What the directions told me to do was make certain that the two speakers were equidistant from each other.
    One certainly had to wonder what the person who wrote the instructions could have believed he meant by that.

  10. A strange calligraphy

    Along the sand there will be frisky shadows, that will dance and fall away.
    Or, if there is snow, the flames will write a strange calligraphy against the whiteness.

  11. Van Gogh

    One of the things people generally admired about Van Gogh, even though they were not always aware of it, was the way he could make even a chair seem to have anxiety in it. Or a pair of boots.

  12. Good morning, Vincent

    Perhaps I shall name the cat that scratches at my broken window Van Gogh.
    Or Vincent.
    One does not name a piece of tape, however.
    There is the piece of tape, scratching at my window. There is Vincent, scratching at my window.

    Good morning, Vincent.

  13. The illusion of anxiety

    Or because of hormones.
    And so which would not really have been anxiety at all, but only an illusion.
    Even if one would certainly be hard put to explain the difference between an illusion of anxiety and anxiety itself.