The Interior of the Grote Kerk at Haarlem

Between 1634 and 1637 Saenredam kept returning to the great church of his own city, the Grote Kerk of Haarlem, dedicated to Saint Bavo. This view gave him real trouble. Two of his drawings for it survive in the Haarlem city archives, and in the earlier one he gave up trying to make one of the arches look right. The arch glimpsed through the piers in the upper corner is left hanging behind the huge column in the middle. He also made the foreground columns far fatter than they are and shrank the distant figures, so the building feels larger than life. The dark diamond-shaped boards on the pillars are coats of arms, marking where noble families lay buried under the floor. Down at floor level a dog jumps up at a man sitting in a wooden pew.