|One of Holland’s most engaging writers Joost Zwagerman committed suicide. His new book – released at the same day, Sept 8 – ‘The Silence of Light’ (‘De Stilte van het Licht’) explores facets of immense silence and a longing for not-being. Zwagerman’s last post at Facebook was a still life by Francisco de Zurbarán, which lead me to still life specialist Morandi, who eschewed literary and symbolic content; but his paintings are so poetic, with objects so abstract. “It takes me weeks to make up my mind which group of bottles will go well with a particular coloured tablecloth. Then it takes me weeks of thinking about the bottles themselves, and yet often I still go wrong with the spaces. Perhaps I work too fast?” Art Giorgio Morandi (1890 -1964).