Emanuel de Witte's painting The Interior of the Oude Kerk,
Amsterdam was created in the 1660s, shortly after a period of
religious and political change in the Netherlands. The Netherland's seven
northern provinces, under Spanish rule since the early 16th century,
fought repeated battles for their independence from Spain. The provinces
were finally successful, with the establishment of a united Protestant
state in 1648. By the time the Ackland's painting was created, various
Protestant denominations existed in the Netherlands, and the region was
considered to be one of the most religiously tolerant in Europe.
Dutch painters no longer relied on church commissions for their
livelihood, but enjoyed the patronage of a wider audience, ranging from
members of the rising merchant class to the village blacksmith.
Linked with this broader audience was the demand for a broader range of
subjects beyond religious painting. Still lifes, individual and group
portraits, landscapes, scenes of everyday life, and architectural painting
were now in demand. These types of paintings were also being painted in
other parts of Europe in the 17th century, but it is only in Holland where
artists focused so intently on the natural world instead of the spiritual
one.
The Ackland's painting of the Oude Kerk, or "Old Church," is a good
example of the Dutch interest in the concrete world. The painting depicts
minute architectural details of the interior of the church clearly and
concisely. These details helped identify the subject, a Gothic church
which still stands in Amsterdam today.
Renowned for his architectural paintings, de Witte's carefully designed
compositions set him apart from his contemporaries. The Interior of the
Oude Kerk, Amsterdam is constructed do that your eye is drawn around
the composition by strategically placing spots of sunlight that attract
the eye. The peasant women with her children seated in the left foreground
and the two men with a dog who are adjacent to her serve as markers for
the foreground and create a sense of scale. The smaller figures to the
right take the viewer's eye further back into space. The angle of the
bench the men are leaning against and sitting upon shows de Witte's use of
linear perspective, a method used by Western artists to create realistic
depth by making all horizontal lines meet at a single point in the
painting -- in this case, somewhere beyond the window. Beyond the bench,
a single shaft of light catches the eye and draws it across the
mid-section of the canvas. This mid-section is flanked by more groups of
men on both sides of the church, effectively leading one to the view
outside.
