It’s February and the new cultural season is in full string. There are plenty of great exhibitions to visit while the wind, rain and snow do their bit for winter outside.

Go to the Rijks for a change
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam kicks off with a major exhibition centred around Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the 2000-year-old epic poem which inspired numerous artists whose work has now been brought together.

Some 80 works by artists such as Titian, Carreggio, Caravaggio, Correggio, Rodin, Brancusi, Magritte and Bourgeois are joined by modern artists who are equally inspired and are adding their media to the mix. As Ovid said, everything changes, nothing is lost. From February 6. Website

Admire Turner’s Dordrecht
The Dordrechts Museum has gathered 10 paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner from the Paul Mellon Collection, courtesy of Yale. The paintings, never before exhibited in the Netherlands includes Dort, or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed.

Turner visited Dordrecht two centuries ago and became enchanted with the quiet of the little harbour town and the play of the sun’s rays on the water.  Water en Licht is on from February 8. Website

Be someone’s Valentine
It’s Valentine’s Day and what better way to find out if and your date are compatible than catching the dinner and a show event at Boom Chicago. If he/she/they laugh when you do it’s a starlit walk in the Vondelpark for afters, if not, it’s a lonely bike ride home. February 14. Website

Listen to London calling
The cream of postwar British painters have defied Brexit and made the journey to the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. The gang’s all here: from Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud to David Hockney and Paula Rego. They all congregated in London, of course. London Calling is on from February 14. Website

Take a bird’s eye view
The  Mauritshuis in The Hague is proud as a peacock to present the capital lettered exhibition BIRDS. Paintings, drawings, natural history and fashion accessories shed light on man’s views of the animal, from harbinger of good or bad news, to food (with or without a tea towel over your head) to companion.

The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius takes pride of place, of course. BIRDS is curated by British historian and The Embarrassment of Riches author Simon Schama, who will give a lecture on the 10th if you are a friend of the museum, that is. From February 15. Website

Sing with Shrek
Shrek the Musical has landed at the Amsterdams Theaterhuis just in time for the spring break. Lovers great and small of the gentle green giant and his friends are welcome on February 20-22 and February 25-March 1. Website

Find the Vincent
Dutch painter Isaac Israëls (1865-1934) was a great friend of Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law Jo Bongers, who preserved most of his paintings for posterity. He also loved his work so much that he “sampled” them in 17 onf his own works.

The Mesdagcollectie in The Hague has put together 10 of those paintings, in which Vincent’s Sunflowers, Bedroom in Arles and The Yellow House put in an appearance. Isaac Israëls Under the Spell of Van Gogh is on from February 20. Website

Discover Urban Blue
Six modern street artists – Claudio Limon (Mexico), Keya Tama (South-Africa), Madi (France), Ryol (Indonesia), Speto (Brazil) en Tja Ling Hu (The Netherlands) –  present their take on Delft Blue ceramics at the Royal Delft Museum.

The mix of cultures in Urban Blue – from Bricks to Tiles has resulted in some stunning works of art in which the cultural backgrounds of the artists are rendered in the familiar colours and shapes.  From February 23. Website

Join the circus
Step right up because the Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht proudly presents: German fashion photographer and former knife thrower’s assistent Ellen von Unwerth. Von Unwerth was left with an abiding love for the circus and it shows in the 160 photographs of supermodels Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell and a host of other celebrities. My Circus is on until September 13. Website

Meet Marlow Moss
Did Piet Mondrian influence fellow artist Marlow Moss or was it the other way around and did the celebrated artist appropriate elements from Moss who died in obscurity?

The Kunstmuseum in The Hague, which is showing three of Moss’s paintings along with hundreds of newly purchased studies, phrases it cautiously, saying “Moss admired Mondrian whose use of the double parallel line is connected with Moss’s introduction of the stylistic element”.

More radical feminist voices later claimed that Mondrian was greatly in artistic debt to cross-dresser and lesbian Moss but since then the waters have calmed and the art world has recognised Moss’s contribution of the double line and settled for “an interchange of knowledge”. Marlow Moss, a suitcase full of sketches is on until May 10. Website