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Saenredam’s St. Bavo
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…
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The St. Bavo organ
The St. Bavo organ In 1738, word must have spread like wildfire among organists and composers that Christian Müller had built one of the largest organs in the world for installation in the Grote St. Bavo Church in Haarlem. As early as 1740, Georg Friedrich Händel came to the city to play the Müller organ.…
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The Great St. Bavo
The Great St. Bavo The Great St. Bavo Church has stood in the old centre of Haarlem, just 20 km from Amsterdam, since 1520. Initially Catholic, it was taken over by the Calvinists in 1578 with some violence and accompanying destruction. The well-preserved Gothic building still serves as a Protestant church but is now mainly…
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The Amstel
The Amstel On my way back from Ouderkerk, my favourite walk along the Amstel. Photo of the week: Amstel river, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2025
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Half-timbered
Half-timbered The beauty of asymmetry in the patterns of old half-timbered houses. Photo of the week: Half-timbered house (detail), Chamandre, Ain, France 2025
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La beauté a sa méthode
La beauté a sa méthode Each one in its own way: one of the oldest houses in Bourg-en-Bresse in the traditional style with stone, earth and wood construction elements, and the method of Jeanne Piaubert with its ‘unique treatment for divine skin and hair’. Photo of the week: La Demeure Hugon, Bourg-en-Bresse, France 2025
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A necklace for the Earth
A necklace for the Earth A distant field of flowering plants from the Brassica family lays as a thin gold necklace on the earth. Beautiful as ever. Photo of the week: Lescheroux, Ain, France 2025
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Framework
Framework I am not a fan of Utrillo’s work but I can appreciate his painting of the house in which Berlioz lived for several years and later Braque had his studio, which now no longer exists. Probably because it is one of the most austere paintings he did. Then again, I cannot appreciate the lavish…
