καιρός remembered

Saenredam’s St. Bavo

In the Rijksmuseum, the Getty Museum, the National Gallery in London or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, you can come face to face with an interior of the Great St. Bavo Church in Haarlem painted by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam. He made at least 12 of them, each from a different angle. I came across this one in the Kunsthaus in Zūrich.

He was purely interested in the architectural space, which really came into its own after the Iconoclastic Fury. He added the few figures for the sake of composition and to give a sense of human scale.

Saenredam also painted the interiors of other churches, but we can safely say that St. Bavo’s was truly his church. He is buried there.

Photo of the week: Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Interior of the Great St. Bavo in Haarlem, 1636, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland 2025