Page of Interior of a Church by WITTE, Emanuel de in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

Pixel Size(978,850)

Interior of a Church

1668
Oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

De Witte was born in Alkmaar, the son of a schoolmaster. He worked in Delft and entered the Delft guild in 1642. By 1652 he settled in Amsterdam where he spent the rest of his life.

In Amsterdam de Witte continued to paint views of Delft churches, but he was inspired more often by the metropolis's grand buildings: its Old Church, lofty New Church, Stock Exchange, and, after it was consecrated in 1675, its Portuguese-Jewish Synagogue. By the late fifties the contrast of light and shadow grows stronger and powerful, and he abandons oblique views for more frontal ones. At this time his interiors also become more fanciful. To be sure, other specialists made changes in the architecture they portrayed but de Witte was capable of radically rearranging it to increase massiveness, and to heighten spatial and chiaroscuro effects.

He also painted purely imaginary interiors of Catholic and Protestant Gothic and Renaissance churches, and designed others using elements taken from well-known Dutch buildings. But he always convinces us, in an uncanny way, that he has painted a view of a real church. It is a surprise to learn that the Interior of a Church in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam (this picture) is one of de Witte's compilations and not a view of a known building. The wooden ceiling and the little organ on the left are based on what de Witte saw at the Old Church in Amsterdam, the massive columns - but not their capitals - were modeled after the huge piers at St Bavo in Haarlem. The round arches and the late afternoon sunlight, which glows through the building, are purely imaginary. Distances are still clear, yet darkness will soon fall over this articulated play of forms. And de Witte not only could create majestic church interiors giving the convincing impression of reality; he also endowed them with a profound personal mood. His tonal design organizes the picture plane in a slightly geometrical fashion and substantially contributes to the articulation of the spatial effect. The movements and gestures of his figures are appropriate to the silence suggested by his dark interiors.

Comparison of this great artist's works with those by Houckgeest and van Vliet shows his wider range, his more powerful spatial effects, and his more interesting pictorial qualities. In general, there is the same noble restraint as in Pieter de Hooch's best genre pieces, Kalf's mature still-lifes, and the grand solemnity of Ruisdael's forest scenes. In the Rotterdam church interior an aspect of his reserve is seen in his understated handling of the skull that is hardly visible in the shadowed debris of the open tomb.