’s-Hertogenbosch, Neeffs, and Bosch
My day in Den Bosch began by going to the Bosch museum (Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands). The museum was small, but had a number of paintings by or in the same style as the famous artist from the city, Hieronymus Bosch.
Of the older paintings in the Noordbrandts collection, several contained buildings that were cut in half resulting in the interior of the building being exposed. This technique of displaying the unseen is not as popular in contemporary fine art today. When I see that type of image I think of cartoons. But why not leave out a front wall of a building?
One of the artworks in the museum that I particularly became interested in was Interior van een kerk (Interior of a church) by Pieter Neeffs de Oude, completed between 1635-1645. The walls of the church lead the eye up the painting. The artist used the light to lead the viewer’s eye to the priest, the candles, and a painting. It has a simple beauty to it, yet it portrays the whitewashed church after reformers had cleansed it of iconography. The artist and historian in me cries out at the damage to the art and artifacts.
Later I went to see the Bosch cathedral Sint Jan which was whitewashed at one time. The ceiling has been restored to some extant and one can see the designs on it that were original.
