Reformation-era Calvinists also sought a return to the purity of the early Church. In 1566’s Breaking of the Images, Protestants in cities across the Low Countries rioted against what they viewed as idolatrous Roman Catholic Church art, launching the Dutch Revolt against Habsburg rule and the Eighty Years War. Dutch Golden Age paintings of churches in the United Provinces (today’s Netherlands) illustrate the impact. Hendrick van Vliet’s Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft (1660) shows clean white interiors with their former religious statuary removed, and tall clear glass windows in the painting’s upper register — medieval stained glass was destroyed. But in what is now Belgium, Counter-Reformation Catholicism triumphed and filled refurbished Baroque churches with dramatic sculpture and religious art.

Hendrick van Vliet’s Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft

Hendrick van Vliet’s Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft

Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Clarence Dillon, 1976

Published on: January 22, 2018
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