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-News for Fri. 19 April & Sat. 20
April 2002
LA
Museum Displays Glimpse of 17th Century Holland
Mike
O'Sullivan
Los
Angeles
20
Apr 2002
 
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to Mike O'Sullivan's report (RealAudio)
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The Nave and Choir of St. Catharinakerk in Utrecht
Pieter Jansz. Saenredam,
1655-1660
Courtesy: J. Paul Getty Museum |
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Visitors to the
Getty Museum in Los Angeles can get a glimpse of 17th century Holland in an
exhibition of the works of Pieter Saenredam. The artist was fascinated by
churches at a time when church and state were undergoing changes in his
country.
Modern visitors
to Utrecht, a medieval commercial center, can still see six of the seven
churches that Pieter Saenredam sketched and painted. His work shows the massive
columns and towering arched ceilings of the churches' interiors, and gives
detailed renderings of their facades.
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Getty Museum curators Lee Hendrix,left, and Scott
Schaefer
VOA
Photo - M. O'Sullivan |
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Lee Hendrix,
curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum, says Saenredam is less well
known than his famous contemporaries, but was no less accomplished as an
artist. "Saenredam is one of the greatest painters of 17th century Holland,
along with Rembrandt and Vermeer and Frans Hals, but he is probably less well
known to most people. He is a quiet and subdued painter, and his art is about a
kind of an intense spiritual experience of church spaces," she
says.
Ms. Hendrix
says the 17th century was a time of momentous change in Holland, and Dutch
churches, as religious and cultural centers, were symbols of the
transformation. Through a long war of independence, the country was emerging
from rule by Catholic Spain. "And one of the central aspects of this war for
independence was freedom of religion and freedom to practice Protestant
religion. So that religion becomes a vehicle of self-understanding, a vehicle
for expressing their own historical self-awareness," she says.
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The Interior of the Buurkerk in Utrecht
Pieter Jansz. Saenredam,
1644
Courtesy:
J. Paul Getty Museum |
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The seven
churches of Utrecht shown in the exhibition were medieval Catholic structures
that were transformed when newly independent Holland became Protestant. In
keeping with the Protestant stress on simplicity in worship, the church
interiors were painted white and the stained-glass art, religious paintings and
statues were removed. "The churches were transformed by these white-washed
interiors and clear windows that admitted a kind of clear, blind light, a very,
very serene and holy light that suffused the interiors," says Ms. Hendrix. "And
this esthetic is really brought to a high level of beauty and restfulness and
serenity in Saenredam's paintings of church interiors."
With its focus
on buildings, Saenredam's art was less popular than that of other Dutch masters
and has attracted less attention over the years, says Scott Schaefer, the Getty
Museum's curator of paintings. "He was not terribly well known in his lifetime
and people were very concerned about the paintings through the subsequent
centuries because they were so empty of figures," he says. "So many times you
get figures added because people were uncomfortable with the serene space that
he created devoid of human presence."
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Curator Liesbeth Helmus of the Centraal Museum in
Utrecht
VOA
Photo - M. O'Sullivan |
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Saenredam's
sketches are meticulous renderings and many are shown in the exhibition beside
their matching paintings. Liesbeth Helmus, the curator from the Centraal Museum
in Utrecht who organized the show, says the paintings are slightly less
realistic than the sketches. "What I think is interesting about Saenredam is
that his drawings are very precise because he made them on the spot. And he
colors them as if they are paintings," she says. "They look very colorful and
beautiful. And then when he was home in the studio in his workshop, he
transformed the drawings into more idealized churches. But they are still very
precise and very solemn, or sacred, in a way."
The Getty
Museum exhibition "The Sacred Spaces of Pieter Saenredam" will be on
display in Los Angeles through early July.
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